by Don Barker

Having provided the United Kingdom's educational system with new school building design concepts throughout the 1950s and 60s, Southwest London has once again become a proving ground for a new type of educational construction.

The Brandlehow Primary School classroom extension in Putney, which opened in January 2006, is no ordinary project. It is only the UK's second education project to use the prefabricated, wood FinnForest Merk system from Germany, which enabled the addition to be built in a matter of weeks.

What's more remarkable about this application of modern technology is that the new project is an extension to a Grade II listed (registered historic) building. And the original building was itself an experiment in prefabrication.   >>>

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Brandlehow Primary School classroom extension by team 51.5° architects. Photo: Don Barker Skylit classroom. Photo: Don Barker   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.