Luton Secondary School and Technical Institute

LUTON SECONDARY SCHOOL AND TECHNICAL INSTITUTION -The design of Messrs. Spalding & Spalding, of 15, Queen-street, Cheapside, London, for the Luton Secondary School and Technical Institution has been selected by Mr. H. Percy Adams, the assessor. The whole of the designs submitted will be publicly exhibited at the Town Hall, Luton, on the 26th and 27th inst., between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. [Builder 17 February 1906 page 176]

SELECTED DESIGN FOR THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS, LUTON - These schools are in course of erection in Park-Square, Luton. the contractors being Messrs. Lewin and Son of Kettering. Accommodation is provided for 150 girls and 150 boys. There are twelve classrooms, eight to accommodate 25 scholars and four to accommodate 30 scholars. and in addition, art rooms. chemical and physical laboratories, lecture room cookery classrooms etc. The assembly-hall is 64 feet long by 36ft. 9in. wide. The workshops provided for working in wood and iron afford accommodation for 25 scholars, and are approached from the play-ground. Rooms for the head master, assistant masters and mistresses are arranged, together with an office for the administrative work of the school. Cycle-rooms are contrived close to the entrances. with cloakrooms and changing rooms for the scholars. Externally the building will be faced with Leverstock Green red brick facings, with Ancaster stone dressings. The roofs will be covered with Westmoreland slates. The architects are Messrs. Spalding and Spalding whose design was selected in the recent competition.  [Building News 8 February 1907 page 203]

LITTON SECONDARY SCHOOLS COMPETITION - For this competition, conducted by the Bedfordshire Education Committee, ten architects were selected to compete, and Mr. H. Percy Adams was appointed assessor. We do not know, and from results it is difficult to judge, upon what grounds the ten were chosen in the first instance. At any rate the standard, with one notable exception, falls very far short of what we had looked for in a limited competition of this nature. More than half the competitors have utterly failed to justify their selection. Neither the assessor’s report nor the report submitted by Messrs. Spalding & Spalding with their winning designs were on view at the Shire Hall, Luton on Monday. All the other reports were, however, displayed. We do not like to suggest that these reports were designedly suppressed by the authorities at Bedford. Indeed, telephonic communication brought the assurance that the reports would be sent through in the afternoon. They did not arrive. We cannot, therefore, review the designs and the award on the same footing. But we cannot understand the award and we cannot agree with it. The winning scheme may be the cheapest submitted, but a high price is paid for this cheapness. The plan violates not a few of the cardinal axioms in school planning, and it will be interesting, indeed, to learn how it fares at the hands of the education authorities in Whitehall. In the conditions certain requirements were set forth to the end that a Secondary School and Technical Institute for 300 children (150 boys and 150 girls) might be obtained at a cost of £6,000. Competitors were, however, “at. liberty to submit their own estimates of the cost, provided that they show clearly how much of the whole scheme can be carried out for £6.000 and yet be complete in itself and meet the requirements of the Board of Education.’’ The site is irregular, with a frontage to Park Square of 108 feet between adjoining buildings. there is a depth of about 350 feet, and on the left flank, some 180 feet from the frontage there is a further space about 100 feet by 70 feet with a narrow frontage out to Church Street. To keep well up to the Park Square front, thus leaving a maximum area for playgrounds in rear, was apparently the problem In Messrs. Spalding’s design. This is done, even to following the irregular existing frontage line; while in Messrs. Russell & Cooper’s scheme the frontage is squared up by setting back a few feet, with much gain in dignity of elevation. We hold no brief for Messrs. Russell & Cooper, but. their scheme stands out so far superior to all the others submitted that we are altogether at a loss to understand the assessor’s award. It is a model of compact, convenient, and resourceful planning and design, adapted to the site in every way most cleverly, and it is withal treated with architectural fitness and dignity of expression. We can only suppose that the question of cost has weighed with the assessor to the exclusion of almost every other consideration. In Messrs Spalding’s design the six classrooms on the ground floor open directly out of the assembly-hall (64 ft. by 37 ft. 6 in.), three on either side. There is a very narrow gallery to the two sides and across the ends of the hall, with classrooms similarly disposed—three for twenty-five to the playground side, one for twenty-five and two for thirty to the fronts, and on the second floor there are three rooms corresponding to these latter, allocated to chemistry, physics, and cookery, except that a passage. 4 feet wide and about 100 feet long, badly lighted and planned as to stairs, is taken off the back of them. Two art-rooms separated by the length of this passage! occur at the top of either staircase over the masters’ common room and office respectively on the first floor, below which again, on the ground floor, are the headmaster’s room and the mistresses’ common room. these latter are lighted into small and objectionable areas, and both have water-closets opening directly out of them, regardless of the fact that the “Head’s” room would be used for interviews with parents and others. A passage against either flank wall of the site gives, past the changing and cloak rooms, access through to the playgrounds in rear, the boys on the left, the girls on the right. The cloak-room divisions form stalls 4 feet wide, which would be the scene of much confusion and congestion The entrances from the street are narrow and have bicycle-rooms next them, into and out of which it would be almost impossible to negotiate a machine. The planning of the stairs is very bad, and their start from the ground floor could scarcely be worse. They are next the street, instead of next the playgrounds, and above they open out as “wells” some 14 ft. square. The assembly-hall has an open queen-post roof, and the lighting would be quite inadequate. The workshops are placed against the Church-street frontage, thus blocking any access there, besides being at some considerable distance from the school building.

In Messrs. Russell & Cooper's design few. if any, of the defects above noted are evident. The general disposition of the hall and classrooms is much the same, but there is a central entrance giving access to the headmaster’s room, and office adjacent. The latrines and workshops are admirably planned into the irregular boundaries of site, and the playgrounds are made the most of. The arrangement of the second floor is incomparably superior to the winning one, and we should have thought that, even after getting both these schemes down to the same basis of cost, there would have been no question whatever as to the superior merits of Messrs. Russell & Cooper’s scheme. Space does not admit our commenting further on the various designs, but it was observed that one competitor who had gone to the trouble of sending in two schemes—fifteen sheets in all— had apparently torn his name and address off them for some reason best known to himself, and which we will not endeavour to fathom.