The Rausing Science Centre at The King’s School
The Rausing Science Centre is a new addition to The King’s School’s historic estate within the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral.
The King’s School was founded in 597 AD by St Augustine and is surrounded by listed buildings and Scheduled Ancient Monuments in the heart of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Walters & Cohen worked with the school and Cathedral stakeholders, including Historic England, the Cathedral Fabric Commission for England and Canterbury Cathedral’s Fabric Advisory Committee to make sure the building suited the school’s curriculum and its historic context.
The school wanted to modernise its science department. Discussions with the project team and science teachers helped identify what new facilities were needed and where they could go. The science department had been in the Grade II listed Parry Hall; these labs were refurbished to accommodate chemistry and biology.
Connected by a delicate glazed link, the Rausing Science Centre provides six physics labs and a generous new lecture hall for 120 people on the ground floor. This is a flexible space that gives the school opportunities for guest lectures, functions and large meetings. The building replaces an old day house that was no longer fit for purpose. The design kept primarily to its footprint, increasing the basement depth to gain the necessary ceiling heights. During excavations, the Canterbury Archaeological Trust found evidence of a first-century Roman road on the site.
The project included upgrading the surrounding area, only one of two entrances into the Cathedral Precincts, to present a more appropriate face for a world-class teaching institution. The new landscape is one of the green focal points of the school’s estate, creating a fitting sense of arrival at the north entrance of the precincts.
The choice of materials evolved through conversations with Historic England and the school, who wanted the new building to be crisp and contemporary but belong in its sensitive historic context. The French limestone is the same as that used to build the Cathedral and is still used for all repairs, from the same suppliers. The cladding is random snapped quarried flint, with occasional horizontal bands of square knapped flint, which breaks up the elevation and provides rhythm to the facade. The quality of craftsmanship and contemporary use of flint references the traditional flintwork found throughout the Cathedral Precincts while ensuring the new building is of its time, a contemporary foil to its historic neighbours.
