Over the summer of 2019, OHD completed the redesign of boarding school residential spaces at Uppingham School. The project involved refurbishing an existing girl’sboarding house and adding a fresh feeling by updating the colour scheme.
This entailed creating bespoke colour schemes, incorporating new flooring and window treatments and introducing acoustic interventions that took the hustle and bustle of the communal dining area into consideration.
Observations & Analysis
During a site visit we surveyed the existing spaces, took photographs and discussed problems and solutions with the staff and students. We discovered several issues:
Zoning with Colour
OHD created a series of colour schemes for each activity zone (several rooms carried out the same function and therefore used the same colour scheme) with sociable and relaxing spaces being predominantly softer shades of dark blue and dusty pink, active communal spaces (for group work) being more energising with pops of vibrant yellow and circulation spaces (which the students had complained were too shocking in their previous yellow) using softer tonal variations of blue.
Shared & Private Spaces
The dining hall design was inspired by a campfire in the woods (bringing people together around warmth and food) and where possible, individual study spaces were placed alongside windows to allow students a view onto greenery.
In the bedrooms we made use of several different colour schemes which aligned with the bedroom size and number of occupants - there were individual rooms for the older students, dorm rooms of four beds and sharer rooms of two beds. We also incorporated a scheme for the day room – which allowed students within the house who weren’t boarding, a homely space of their own to retreat to.
"The house is much less disorientating now, when I step out of a room into the corridor I know right away where I am"
