LSA Tutor Reimagines Liverpool Secondary Schools
Liverpool School of Architeture tutor James Jones has recently been involved with reimagining the rebuilding of Liverpool's secondary schools.
In 2010 the government withdrew the next phase of Liverpool's funding for rebuilding the city's neglected secondary schools. The city decided to carry on regardless, funding the school programme themselves. So with Willmott Dixon Construction and James Jones from Sheppard Robson they developed a new model for school procurement which disproved the widely held canard that good architecture cannot be cost effective. Notre Dame was the first school using the new model. It is of exemplary quality in both design and construction, responding sensitively to the needs of the school and to its location at the edge of Everton Park. Yet it was the most cost effective secondary school then built in the UK at around £1450/m² all in. Two more schools followed in Liverpool and now James and his team at SR are beginning design for a school in Bedford with possibility projects coming also in Peterborough and Derbyshire, all on the same model yet each responsive to the local school brief. The Liverpool schools programme is being closely watched from Westminster. Perhaps central government have started to take notice: architects, given opportunity, are fully skilled to deliver both high quality and cost-effective design.