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Source:&nbsp Matthew Ling PhotographyA post-occupancy evaluation carried out at Hawkins\Browns award-winning primary school in Derby shows children gravitating towards outdoor spaces and connecting with nature, reports Martha Dillon When pupils at St Marys Voluntary Catholic Academy, Derby, were asked to photograph where they would most like to have their lessons, they all took pictures of outdoor spaces: the amphitheatre, forested areas or gardening club shelter. Asked what made them feel calm in their classrooms, they photographed the windows. In a mapping exercise (see below), red stickers showing where they least liked were mostly assigned to covered areas and indoor spaces (one Year 5 pupil stole the pack and put them all on his classroom).St Marys, designed by Hawkins\Brown and the winner of last years AJ100 Sustainability Initiative of the Year, is the UKs first Department for Education (DfE) funded biophilic primary school, meaning it fosters humans innate tendency to seek connections with ecosystems.After the schools original buildings burned down in 2020, it was selected for the DfEs GenZero pilot to construct schools working with nature for health, wellbeing and the environment. The site has been reoriented, relandscaped and built to low embodied and operational carbon specifications using standardised timber modules and PV panels. Last month, engineer Tilbury Douglas and the DfE hosted a symposium to share lessons from the schools first year of life.Advertisement Source:Sophie Rickard, University of DerbySt Marys most notable biophilic feature is that it massively expands outdoor access. In the UK, only 24 per cent of schools provide daily opportunities for pupils to experience nature, dropping to 18 per cent in more deprived areas. Here, every classroom opens outwards: the schools five single-storey timber blocks connect through winding paths and a covered outdoor canopy.Wherever you are, youve always got sight of some greenery, says Hawkins\Browns project architect David Brook, who is also technical director. Rather than an efficient footprint with internal circulation, most of that circulation is outside kids get a little bit of fresh air when they go back and forth.There are no fenced-off nature areas, while service routes that previously cut off access to trees have been diverted. The outdoor amphitheatre and outdoor Wi-Fi spots facilitate externallessons.Speaking at the symposium, Miles Richardson, a leading expert on connections with nature, said: We have busy lives and there is a battle for attention. Architects need to be designing a place or space so that it prompts engagement. Source:Matthew Ling PhotographyIn St Marys, the grounds are divided into a variety of different areas: busy playing fields, a meditation space, functional hard surfaces (excellent for dance routines, apparently), private forest, and sheltered courtyards.AdvertisementHeadteacher Amanda Greaves tells the symposium that she thinks the most impactful change is that children now choose where they want to go in their play and lunch breaks, creating their own ways of interacting with their surroundings.For Brook, spaces with a bit more identity give children options and preferences, and then, because each one of those [spaces] can be characterised, they will change peoplesdecisions.While spaces might initially look conventional, the same ecosystem-esque flexibility and flow applies within the buildings. The layout is organic the five school blocks are like organs around the central covered spine. Many of the walls and desks are whiteboards and some classroom furniture is on wheels so pupils can move and write dynamically.Even the services are exposed or wall-mounted. This was originally intended to help maintenance and reduce embodied carbon but, in practice, also reinforces the sense of the building as a moving, living system. Source:Matthew Ling PhotographySome children have apparently picked up on this, wanting to understand the pipework labelling. According to Brook, this speaks to those biophilic principles of being in harmony with your natural world, rather than existing in a separate plane independent of it, where we sort of lose thatcontext.An even deeper immersion with ecosystems comes from active learning. St Marys has a gardening club, which prioritises access to students who dont have gardens at home. While this isnt exactly radical, Greaves says they plan to involve parents too. Swales around the site can be used to teach children about blue habitats while low paved walls and brambled areas provide pupils with positive and manageable risks.This is reminiscent of the Forest Schools philosophy, which holds that wilder green spaces are the most fertile places for young people to explore and learn for themselves. Brook notes that there is also an environmental educational component to risk. Having some spiky bushes is quite useful, he says, because then we learn that we shouldnt just be running riot through thelandscaping. Source:Matthew Ling PhotographyMeasuring the overall success of biophilia is tricky. Many formal frameworks are dissatisfying, prioritising aesthetics and passive allusions to ecological features, such as shapes and colours. It is to St Marys credit that the experience of the pupils is centre stage instead. Its blocky buildings may not mimic shells and leaves but they are having an impact.According to pupil surveys by University of Derby PhD student Sophie Rickard (also responsible for the mapping exercise), pupils have shown a sustained increase in life satisfaction post-move, and their reading and mathematics scores have risen. The school also seems to be having a calming effect. The teachers allow stressed and overwhelmed children, many of whom have chaotic home environments, to ask to go outside, which academics interpret as them using eco-systems to self-regulate.I like these big trees, one child reported. They survived the fire and that gives me hope that if you are ill, you can think about that big tree that survived. The findings add to a wealth of evidence that natural systems are crucial for childrens health and development.Another consideration is the health of ecosystems themselves. Last September, a major compendium of international evidence showed conclusively that the view that humans are separate from and superior to nature and that nature comprises objects for humans to use as resources is one of the three main causes of the staggering levels of biodiversity loss worldwide.Shifting to a more reciprocal relationship is quite literally life or death; we cannot use biophilic principles only to plunder nature for its productivity or wellbeing benefits. Source:PICTURE IT MEDIAIn St Marys, a link is emerging: academics say they have seen in pupils a small but sustained increase in nature connectedness, a continued increase in pro-conservation behaviour and stronger environmental perceptionsscores.St Marys cant be replicated everywhere. It is a new build, in a large, open site peopled by young children with structured opportunities to go outside and learn. But there have been transferable successes here. The diversity of St Marys outdoor spaces, its blurred boundary between covered and open areas, and the opportunities it provides to directly engage people with their surroundings are all steps towards a more reciprocal type of architecture.At the symposium, the DfE revealed it had begun a feasibility study for a biophilic secondary school down the road, suggesting that the (unspecified) cost uplift of delivering this pioneering new school has not deterred further exploration. The department also plans to include lessons from St Marys and other pilot schools in design guides, including refurbishment guides, which will be published later this year.Brook wants the project to enshrine a higher standard that we should be working towards. Lets hope so. Thousands of UK schools are overdue major safety and sustainability upgrades. What an unmissable opportunity to drop the greenwashing, and start to repair human and ecological connections at scale.2025-03-26Simon Aldouscomment and share
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