Banned in Britain: curves

[JohnAKeith]

New school building designs hit by curve ban

Government bans curved, glass and folding walls and orders concrete ceilings and render cladding to cut costs

Dateline: London, England

Curves are to be banned in a new generation of no-frills school buildings, according to a government crackdown on what it believes is wasteful extravagance in educational architecture.

Design templates unveiled for 261 replacement school buildings also prohibit folding internal partitions to subdivide classrooms, roof terraces that can be used as play areas, glazed walls and translucent plastic roofs.

The templates were published on Monday to allow architects and builders bidding for £2.5bn of contracts on new school buildings to understand what the government expects from smaller and cheaper schools. The government is planning to replace the primary and secondary schools it has deemed to be in the worst condition as part of a five-year programme.

 

[datadyne007]

Alucobond, ahoy!

But seriously, I actually agree with this. Giant glass curtain walls are not cheap to build, maintain, or replace. All it takes is one accident with a smashed/damaged window and then a huge chunk of the budget goes to fixing the custom curtain wall instead of buying new books or supplies.

 

[czsz]

But the ban is on curves, not glass curtain walls?

 

[datadyne007]

The subtitle is exactly what John posted. It clearly says "curved, glass, and folding walls."

 

[czsz]

Sorry; need to drink my coffee before reading this forum in the future.

 

[datadyne007]

What I hope comes out of this is highly innovative/sustainable design solutions, but the prison fear is a very real one. Selection of the architects will be key.

They should turn to Switzerland and start analyzing the Swiss box.

 

[JonFrum]

How can you possibly build a good school without curved walls? A generation of children will be doomed to illiteracy without curved walls. Damn those Tory toffs!