Colerne Primary School Bike Shelter

Project Info

The designers were asked to use the design of a new bike shelter as an education vehicle for year groups 3 and 4 of Colerne Primary School, who had obtained a £5k Green Travel Grant which funded the project.

The design evolved through a series of workshops with the school children. The team came up with a number of schemes with years 3 and 4 and put it to the whole school for a vote.

The hyperbolic parabaloid shape was generated by wanting to create a self shading structure (sun and driving rain), and responds to site specific weather patterns. The shape and design adds strength through its form, and thus the main timber beams are very slender. The simple flitch at the base is rotated through 90 degrees on each bay, to add strength but not cost.

The children were also involved in the physical construction of the project, working on site alongside Charley Brentnall. All the timber (Larch, grown locally) was donated by a local land owner, and this was another constraint – the makers had to take what we were given.