CDT Building

Bryanston School, Dorset

The Norman Shaw architecture of the original house was being swamped by a dissipated campus of weak buildings. This stops the rot. As an extension to Shaw’s east wing, it forms the north side of a future courtyard. In red brick with cast stone columns, it is Shaw with a twist. A real brief from a real client produced a tough functional plan, based around maximum supervision by minimum staff. The first floor arrangement of classrooms and corridors is expressed as two barrel-vaulted roofs separated by a flat one, which reads on the end elevations. The ground floor workshops have large glass doors for light and protective swooping walls at the back to enclose any mess. The screw columns support hooded upper-floor windows in a paraphrase of computer screens to reduce unwanted sunlight.