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Cool, calm & collaborative

3 December 2019

When you close your eyes and imagine the calmest place you can, where do you go? Maybe a lovely beach, or quiet meadow? Or how about floating on a cloud under a night sky of stars, sleeping in a marshmallow castle or swimming with a dolphin off the coast of a deserted island?

Working with 180 year 5 students (and their wonderfully unpredictable imaginations) we were excited to be commissioned by Bow Arts to co-design two mindfulness spaces in the playgrounds of Valence Primary School. The structures were built over the summer and completed in early autumn of 2019.

During the workshops, students explored 2D and 3D materials to create their perfect space for calm. With colourful overhead canopies and inventive scenes, furniture and decorations, we finished the three days with 44 models of every calming space imaginable. A wealth of ideas to use, we amalgamated the outputs to create two separate structures for each of the school’s sites on St George’s and Bonham Road.

Site no.1 at St George’s Road took inspiration from the pods and seating-pockets of the workshop models to create two custom CNC-cut arched structures. Assembled on-site, each shelter has multiwall polycarbonate windows which give varied views of the sky and surrounding tree canopy, and are clad in raw hit-and-miss batten. The decorative CNC-cut front panels used the fluid wave-like forms of the students’ initial canopy designs, and offer a sense of seclusion whilst still allowing for safeguarding.

“During the process our assumptions were challenged by the students’ work. In the workshops at the St Georges Road site, many of the groups worked with circular forms and rows of matchsticks, whereas at Bonham Road, the idea of a patterned canopy was popular. We took these ideas to heart, and used them as the main moves in each design.”

make:good’s Rich

The second site at Bonham Road uses traditional joinery to create decking complete with planters that extend out from a timber canopy. Within the depth of the canopy sits CNC-cut decorative panels which showcase the 2D designs and shapes of the students’ designs. The angled poles reflect the popular theme of woodland and tall forest trees that appeared in many of the models, whilst the rippling fins at the back help create a sense of calm once again using the wave motif.

The use of CNC cutting allowed for patterns taken directly from the students’ work to be incorporated directly into the finished structure, giving them ownership and authorship of a place to help them and their younger compatriots.

As featured in the December 2019 Collaboration issue of Blueprint magazine.

CNC Projects kindly donated their time at a reduced rate. The Dagenham and Rainham branches of Travis Perkins also donated £200 worth of materials.