Pioneer School

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  • A leading project on the Building Schools for the Future Programme.
  • Close liaison with school and architect for an innovative design.
  • Series of theme gardens with indoor/outdoor concept.
  • Highly designed landscape created to stimulate.

The Building Schools for the Future Programme was a Government-funded scheme to build model schools to the highest possible standards.Pioneer School in Basildon, Essex was one of the first schools developed under this programme and combined innovative landscape architecture with a visually interesting architectural design to the building.We worked on both the main building phase and on a later extension scheme.

The school is a special educational needs school with pupils aged from five to 23 with a wide range of abilities. We worked closely with the school and the architects to create a series of stimulating environments to enable the children to experience real life activities. We designed an indoor/outdoor concept where themed classrooms (craft, kitchen, library, home, performance) were linked to related outdoor garden spaces.

These gardens had an outdoor connection to the same themes with a market, a vegetable garden, an outdoor reading area with a periscope sculpture, a practical living garden to hang out washing and put out bins, and a dance and performance garden.As well as being an outside extension of the classrooms the gardens were linked to one-another with linear walkways.

The result is a highly designed landscape that was full of stimulating creative detail; a lovely environment for the children to enjoy and learn in.

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