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Click on images for larger
views.
The Hazelwood
School for the Sensory Impaired combines two of Glasgow's
special needs schools into one, in a facility catered to "children
aged from 4 to 18 with severe visual, mobility and sensory
impairment." Gordon
Murray + Alan Dunlop Architects approached the design
by holding workshops, meetings, and seminars with the two
client groups. The result is a building that successfully
caters to those special needs, while also stimulating the
children through their experience of the spaces.
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At first glance the project is
reminiscent of Stanley Tigerman's Illinois Regional Library
for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (now a bank) in Chicago,
where an undulating window and adjacent desk allow the users
to move through the space via the sense of touch, rather than
the predominant sense of vision. It's an appropriate gesture
in Chicago and in Glasgow, where it is found in the whole
plan, curling across the site
to allow for a stronger sense of movement and memory.
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The sinuous plan not only creates
strong internal circulation, it also creates outdoor
rooms. Given the mobility concerns of such an architectural
program, the prospect of crossing streets or a parking lot
to reach an outdoor play area is highly impractical. By cradling
outdoor spaces via the plan's bends the adjacency of the two
realms is immediate. Additionally the external environment
is always perceived indoors, be it through the windows
and clerestories in the classrooms
or the natural ventilation of the single-loaded corridor.
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The main circulation along the
length of the plan illustrates the design considerations supplied
by the architects. These include the small-scale gesture of
the zig-zagging wood walls,
the waist-level contours in
these walls, and the textures of the floors, including the
placement of the HVAC grilles for additional aid in movement.
Of course, one need not think that these sorts of considerations
are limited to those with special needs. It is important for
architects to constantly think about the all the senses and
ways people interact with their architecture; ideally architects
make such an experience richer. |
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Hazelwood School in Glasgow, Scotland
by Gordon Murray + Alan Dunlop Architects |
2008.04.28 |
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on images below for larger views.
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