The Joseph Whitaker School, Nottinghamshire

Specialising in both sports and performing arts, The Joseph Whitaker School sits in the town of Rainworth, Nottinghamshire. With over 1200 students on a 24 acre campus, the school is part way through an extensive expansion programme which adds to its already impressive facilities. 

The school campus boasts more outdoor than indoor space, and part of the expansion process has been making use of that as the student count rises. One particular area that was beginning to strain through that growth was the dining hall. More students meant a need to stagger lunch into shifts when, ideally, they’d all get fed at the same time.

They opted for an outdoor canopy to act as an overspill, providing shelter all year round. However, with budgets being tight it wasn’t possible to glaze all four walls of the structure. At this point, Streetspace were able to step in and configure the project in a way that ticked the boxes on budget while still providing that vital shielding from the elements.

This resulted in a unique 20m x 14m ORION Barrel Vault canopy that features glazing on one quarter of the structure. It is built on an area of the school where prevailing wind is channelled through other buildings – evident from the wind farm that can be seen in a neighbouring field. The cleverly placed glazing specifically provides cover from this, while still allowing students to spend time outside.

The tensile fabric creates soft natural light diffusion and also benefits from acoustic qualities over hard roof coverings such as polycarbonate or steel. This is really evident when it comes to absorbing the sound of rain, voices and echo.

Students have taken very fondly to the canopy and enjoy being able to spend their time in a sheltered, outdoor environment. Crucially for the school, it means that the next phase of extending the dining hall internally can go ahead with less disruption as the canopy will enable them to filter the lunch pattern through the space. Having experienced the benefit of this build, the school is looking to the future and how additional canopies could be used to solve other problems around the campus.