The most beautiful building in England is a school

ENERGY SAVING IN SCHOOLS

Close your eyes and try to forget our schools, often sad and dilapidated. Then open them and look at the images of this extraordinary building: the most beautiful in all of EnglandA school, precisely.

We are London and the building that welcomes the students of the Burntwood School, presents itself as a champion of architecture that does not waste even a centimetre of space and makes the most of the light. Thus avoiding, for example, the devastation of classrooms lit by electricity during the day.

This building has won several awards, thanks to a radical choice: an interpretation of Sustainability at the service of the needs of students and not of the sometimes excessive ego of a single designer.

BURNTWOOD SCHOOL LONDON

It is a old school 1950s, a girls' institute, renovated at a cost—and not a waste—of £41 million with a design by the Alford Hall Monaghan Morris firm. What makes this school so special? First of all, in the light which floods all the classrooms, then in the elegant and sinuous use of deeply chamfered reinforced concrete panels. The campus is an immense park, complete with elegant auditorium and swimming pool for studentsIn practice, the school allows you to do not turn on artificial lights during all hours of the day, so it is a building zero energy consumption. Outside, in addition to the library, there are school gardens and tree-lined avenues"A beautiful environment to study in," say the students of Burntwood School in unison. Lucky them.

WHEN SCHOOL FALLS TO PIECES:

• A school with asbestos, and the principal writes to students: No running, you risk your health.
• Schools are at risk, now they're at risk of closing. And there are many, too many...
• Schools are unheated, it's cold, and so in Italy, people aren't studying...