The shortlists have been announced for the 2022 Learning Places Scotland Awards and we are delighted that several of our education projects have been shortlisted! The Awards comprise of 11 categories recognising contractors, consultants, clients, architects and projects as well as technology and innovation and it is an honour to be considered alongside such a fantastic selection of projects and nominees. This week we would like to share with you the projects that have been shortlisted…

Good luck to all our fellow shortlisted nominees in this category and we are looking forward to seeing you all at the conference and awards dinner in November!

Inspiring Learning Places – Castlebrae Community Campus

This fantastic new building for The City of Edinburgh Council replaces the old Castlebrae High School in a more prominent site in Craigmillar Town Centre, forming one of the final pieces of a 20 year long regeneration project to improve housing stock and community facilities in the area. The design has a strong placemaking focus, presenting a frontage to Niddrie Mains Road and therefore placing community education visibly at the heart of the community.

Castlebrae Community Campus currently provides accommodation for 700 pupils, with an expansion strategy considered in detail from the outset to increase capacity to 1200 pupils should need arise. A key design idea of connectivity of internal learning environments has been realised through articulation of the building’s cross section, which exploits the slope of the site allowing the ‘interlocking’ of various spaces and promotes collaborative learning and ease of navigation. The location of the school’s external learning facilities, facing open community edges and connecting with learning parkland to the north, maximises community integration and important views from the school are orientated toward the historic skyline of Edinburgh in this way the design connects the school to the city.