Architect chosen over fellow finalist Reiach & Hall in competition for ‘repeatable’ school

Walters & Cohen has been chosen over Reiach & Hall to design Lairdsland Primary School in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire.

The two practices were shortlisted by the Scottish Futures Trust for the design of a “reference” primary school, similar to a sample school under the Building Schools for the Future programme, with East Dunbartonshire making the final selection.

As well as producing costed design proposals to RIBA Stage C, the brief also required that their designs be scalable from 200 to 300 pupils, so the principles could be rolled out across Scotland without comprising on quality.

The idea was not to standardise primary schools across Scotland, but to provide a set of principles that would be used creatively to respond to site and community context, said partner Michál Cohen.