Pimlico Secondary School
Pimlico, London
Size: year 7-11 plus 6th form, four form entry, 1400 pupils
Gross Area: 12,433m2
circulation: 571m2 ( 14% of total gross )
Pimlico School is built at the basement level of three residential terraces cleared from the site after WWII bomb damage. It
is 2.4m below road level with playgrounds at the north and south areas of the site. The main entrance to the building is
located on the first floor of the building with the central admin space and reception. It is also the location of the doubleheight assembly hall and year rooms which are intended for social means and registration.
There is quite an obvious opposing relationship between the external form of the building and the internal layout. The
architect John Bancroft stressed the concept of circulation and movement upon the internal organization of the school
where water as a conceptual medium was intended to organise the flow of 1400 pupils. The central river therefore (known
as the concourse) is located at road level and accessed via both east and west ends of the building. Following this there is
a hierarchical arrangement of departments and rooms that the pupil is invited to arrive at through a series of “tributaries”.
These clusters of spaces then remove the student from the bustle of the central circulation space and provide a form of
retreat to concentrate. However this can sometimes create concern about the clarity of circulation where only one narrow
staircase provides access to four rooms. Doorways are provided between the classrooms but at times this can be
confusing because the classrooms then need to function as spaces that are as permeable as the circulation. The reality of
this arrangement in the school is that it then presents a number of issues concerning the amount, boisterousness and
doubling back of traffic between lessons because the routes are sometimes windy and unclear. However this can also be
interpreted as the opportunity for pupils to stamp their own territory on a building that they only know the layout of.
Pimlico School is however predominantly more infamous for its environmental issues concerning over-heating and solar
gain. The sections demonstrate the depth of the plan and that both north and south elevations are almost entirely glazed
to allow the recommended daylighting levels on table tops as insisted by building regulations at the time of construction.
The classroom glazing, with the intention of providing as much daylight as possible, inadvertently creates enormous solar
gain issues making the rooms as hot as 38 deg. C in summer. The glazing down the length of the concourse however
appears purely as a visual reference to the surrounding context where the student is invited to pause to regain a
relationship with the external environment. There is however a general issue of surveillance as there is no main central
orientation space.
The school generally however has a problem with funding as in this particular district of London it appears to be very poor.
The school suffers from broken glazing panels, broken artificial ventilation systems and structural shifting. Some of which
can be pinned on the design, such as with no access to the roof to clean windows, and others on general “boisterous”
activity from pupils. It would be cheaper to dismantle the building and build a new school than fix the issues with the
existing school.