Fleet Infant School

Fleet Infant School

This infants' school was designed between 1984 and 1985 by Michael Hopkins and Partners, with Patty Hopkins as lead architect, and constructed in 1985–1986 for Hampshire County Council. The structural frame was developed in collaboration with engineer Ted Happold. A music room, also designed by Hopkins and Partners, was added in 1998.

The main building employs a lightweight colour-coated steel frame measuring 58 metres by 22 metres, arranged in nine bays of 6 metres each with 2-metre overhangs at both ends, providing 1,188 square metres of accommodation. The frame is reinforced by cross-bracing and mullions set at 2-metre intervals. Paired attenuated hollow section columns in a 'dumb bell' arrangement—with inner and outer columns—support cranked rafters spanning 10 metres and a roof of insulated metal decking. The north and south elevations and the convex corridor roof are fully glazed, while the end walls are clad in blue colour-coated aluminium sheeting beneath clerestory glazing. External canopies of Teflon-coated PVC in blue complete the exterior treatment.

The school is planned as a rectangle around a central, top-lit axial corridor running roughly east-west. The south side contains nine classrooms arranged in handed pairs with one single classroom at the eastern end. Each classroom is open to the roof and top-lit spine, divided by head-height partitions aligned with the structural bays. Every classroom contains an enclosed polygonal pod backing onto the corridor and a practical area at its southern, windowed end, with double doors opening onto a common paved terrace beneath a canopy. North of the corridor lie, from west to east: a full-height hall used for dining and sports; enclosed kitchens, offices and children's cloakrooms; a full-height common resource area with a north entrance lobby; and further east, cellular offices, a staff room, small teaching rooms and additional children's cloakrooms.

The south elevation is fully glazed with fixed panels, opening lights and a pair of doors. Above each classroom, supported on aluminium-coated struts, blue flexible Teflon-coated PVC canopies provide shade. Entrances at the east and west elevations, set back beneath the roof structure overhang, feature double doors. The blue colour-coated corrugated wall cladding echoes the blue of the canopies. The main entrance to the school is centrally positioned on the shaded north elevation with double glazed doors; a Teflon-coated PVC canopy above extends to cover the route to the music room, to which it is also attached.

Internally, the resource area—recently refurbished as the library—rises full-height beneath the northern roof slope and is flanked by offices, cloakrooms and the kitchen in white-walled, flat-roofed compartments. Doors feature porthole windows, with those for adults placed at a higher level than those for children. The top-lit axial corridor expressively displays the steel frame, with pronounced fixings on the cross-bracing, and is ventilated by opening roof lights. The polygonal pods, also finished in white, each have a porthole window facing the corridor and open into their respective classrooms. The hall rises full-height beneath the northern roof slope and is separated from the corridor by a glazed wall with a recessed glazed entrance lobby.

The music room contrasts with the main building in presenting a solid form, rendered in textured concrete coloured blue. Roughly wedge-shaped in plan and wider at the north, it tapers towards the south, with a mono-pitch roof also sloping southward. A steel-framed glazed door unit provides access to an interior lined in wood panels beneath a flat ceiling, while recessed doors to the east and west feature porthole windows.

The school retains much of its original characteristic white-painted partitions and doors with porthole windows. Moveable fixtures, fittings and plant are not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.