Shooters Hill College Refurbishment
Fusion Classroom Design have worked for Shooters Hill College on a rolling program to upgrade staff, teaching and student areas throughout the College. Projects for the college refurbishment in south east London include a new Media classroom that can be quickly and easily sub-divided for smaller student groups. A refurbished Staff Room; new staff offices to a template design created by Fusion; A-Level student building with teaching, study and Student Lounge areas, an ART IT classroom and other upgrades for student services, study and disbursement rooms.
Starting with a colour palette and design style means that a common theme is being introduced throughout the College across a number of buildings. The palette includes fabrics and worksurfaces. Not so rigid that variation is impossible, a guideline set of colours does create continuity as well as a ‘house’ style that helps to brand the interior spaces with colours that are attuned to the College logo and marketing. Varying design approaches to teaching, staff and support spaces are drawn together using the design theme, giving confidence that spaces can be planned for the exact purpose without being out of sync to the rest of the campus.
A-Level building interior design
The newly refurbished A-Level APEX building offers a dedicated space for teaching and student support to A level students. The building includes a large IT exploration classroom designed for teaching, technology-rich learning and exploration both on-screen and on bench spaces for practical applications. The classroom has exploration surfaces set alongside ICT benching. The far end of the classroom includes 10 student desks for individual use of IT outside a conventional learning format, with its own collaboration worksurface. Adjacent to the classroom is the Student Lounge with curved soft-seating that is used to form huddle zones, as well as a centre area with small sofas. On the upper level is a study space using concentration booths, some relaxed armchairs and bookshelves for reference reading. This study room is aimed to be tech free so the Study space can be more focused. Calm and concentration can be difficult to find in a busy 6th form college and the study room design offers a different style, big enough only for 12 – 14 students at maximum.
Staff and Support Offices
As well as student and teacher-facing areas the staff offices are getting a makeover. Rooms are being freshened and furniture streamlined. The result is a tidy, well-organised set of offices that de-clutter. Convenience power modules on the desk make life easy for plug-and-play. The softening divider-screens add colour and sound absorption. Staff office furniture is linear in design, in a relatively open style, with the warmer woodgrain tone. Our School furniture pages can be seen here
Unique Spaces.
The refurbishment program has included some one-off areas. The main boardroom has a new table, in the college colour palette, for 16-18 people. Set in a very wide room the table shape is a softened rectangle that fits nicely in the volume of the conference room. A one-off is an ART IT Classroom. Located in a room without windows, on a raw concrete floor painted grey, the saw-tooth IT benching is white to lift the overall colour temperature. The Art block is a standalone building and the use of white worksurfaces is a departure that bows to the architecture.
A refurbished Staff Room also departs a little from the design theme in a way, making use of some grey tones found elsewhere without using the dominant green accent colours. The design approach to the staff room refurb suggested that the interior could depart from the set palette to create a distinct contrast. The design brief for the staff room redesign had three objectives. First and foremost the staff room needed to serve as a ‘refuel’ area for coffee and teas. Canteen use for lunch, and a soft breakout zone, comprise the other main roles. Furniture was selected for these purposes. A further requirement was for coat-hanging for Estate Security staff to use. More examples of staff room design can be seen here.
