{"id":10943,"date":"2025-11-25T10:30:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T11:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rutha.org\/?p=10943"},"modified":"2025-11-28T12:34:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T12:34:31","slug":"walters-cohen-clads-canterbury-school-building-with-snapped-flint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rutha.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/25\/walters-cohen-clads-canterbury-school-building-with-snapped-flint\/","title":{"rendered":"Walters & Cohen clads Canterbury school building with snapped flint"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/div>\n

London studio Walters & Cohen<\/a> has completed The Rausing Science Centre for a school<\/a> in Canterbury, Kent<\/a>, offering a contemporary take on the historic area’s material palette of flint<\/a>, oak and limestone. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Rausing Science Centre provides six science classrooms and a 120-person lecture hall on the site of former Mitchinson’s Day House at The King’s School, which was built in 1982 by former British studio Maguire and Murray but demolished after Historic England refused a listing application.<\/p>\n

\"The
Walters & Cohen has completed The Rausing Science Centre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Given the site’s sensitive location alongside one of only two entrances into Canterbury’s historic cathedral precincts, Walters & Cohen<\/a>\u00a0looked to balance a traditional material palette and gabled form with what it described as a “crisp and contemporary” approach.<\/p>\n

The building also connects to the school’s existing laboratories in the neighbouring Grade II-listed Parry Hall, which has been refurbished by Walters & Cohen, via a glazed link.<\/p>\n

\"The
It forms part of The King’s School in Canterbury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“The materials of the cathedral precincts are a fine-grained Normandy limestone called Caen stone, flint, oak and clay tiled roofs,” co-founder Cindy Walters told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“We used the same palette of materials detailed in a crisp and contemporary manner,” she continued. “The process required multiple Scheduled Ancient Monument Applications, complex negotiations with the Cathedral Fabric Commission for England and a 9-month pause in proceedings to carry out a detailed archaeological dig.”<\/p>\n

\"Entrance
The building sits alongside an entrance to Canterbury’s cathedral precincts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Overlooking the street and precinct entrance, The Rausing Science Centre’s flint facade is finished with two rows of windows framed in pale stone and oak, and topped by a gabled roof of red-clay tiles.<\/p>\n

Within the flint facade is a subtle pattern based on the DNA sequence of an artichoke, represented by horizontal bands of square knapped flint that contrast with the surrounding irregular snapped flint.<\/p>\n

\"Flint
Flint wraps the exterior<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the opposite side, where the building overlooks a courtyard known as Mint Yard to the north, these stone window openings have been extended almost the entire height of the facade.<\/p>\n

The project also involved upgrades to the surrounding public realm, including a patio on one edge of Mint Yard with walk-on glass that illuminates the basement below, and in future resurfacing works to the roads leading into the precinct.<\/p>\n