The Aquifer Partnership (TAP) partnered with Moulsecoomb Primary School to renovate a courtyard space into a beautiful, water-friendly, SuDS garden with emphasis on education and play opportunities. TAP was established to protect and improve the quality of groundwater in the Brighton Chalk Block as a valuable natural resource.

 

 

Who is on the project team? 

 

Robert Bray Associates, The Aquifer Partnership, Vu Gardens.

 

Describe the context of this project and its neighbourhood and people?

 

The Aquifer Partnership (TAP) partnered with Moulsecoomb Primary School to renovate a courtyard space into a beautiful, water-friendly, SuDS garden with emphasis on education and play opportunities. 

 

 

TAP was established to protect and improve the quality of groundwater in the Brighton Chalk Block as a valuable natural resource. Moulsecoomb Primary School was chosen to be part of TAP’s SuDS in Schools programme as it is in a source protection zone, close to an extraction borehole, and in an area prone to flooding. 

 

The area of Moulsecoomb consists predominantly of social housing. Parts of the area are within the 10% most deprived areas in the UK (as defined by the Index of Multiple Deprivation). It has the worst child poverty in Brighton and Hove, ranked 3rd most deprived in Sussex and 114th nationally. While the area faces many problems, there is a growing network of community organisations and partnerships working together, and a rising sense of possibility and opportunity emerging across the estates.

 

What is your design approach?

 

The courtyard garden at Moulsecoomb Primary School was well used by pupils but had become tired and an unruly maintenance burden for the school. Access was restricted and the space had not been well planned out. The garden has now been completely transformed through the redesign and introduction of SuDS. The design looks to manage surface roof run-off within the courtyard in a sustainable way whilst providing an interactive and dynamic space for pupils. 

 

Within school hours, particular focus has been made to the role the rainscape can play for children with additional learning needs who come to the garden for classroom breaks. The space also provides a hub for a range of after-school activities and school clubs, well as a home for the school’s pet chickens.

 

Roof run-off enters new features through a series of imaginative downpipes, commissioned by local artists. Features such as rainplanters and an ornamental pond are fed into at the first stage of cleaning and attenuating and then connected via channel details that wind towards the central pond. Dense planting in this area has a particular focus on pollinator friendly species and is buzzing with life in the summer months. A pond dipping platform has proved extremely popular with the students as well as low standing sensory-filled planters, used by the grow club.

 

What is your climate strategy?

 

TAP is a partnership set up between the South Downs National Park, Southern Water and Brighton and Hove City Council with a focus on protecting the chalk aquifer that stretches beneath the region and is its source of drinking water. 

 

Moulsecoomb Primary School Courtyard is one project being delivered by TAP with the SuDS in Schools programme. The series aims to introduce SuDS features that can reduce pollution to the aquifer but also spread awareness and educate children and families in the importance of protecting it. 

 

Run-off entering the rainscape from surrounding roofs travels through a connected sequence of various SuDS features where it is cleaned and attenuated with an aim to filter and slow the flow before feeding back into the aquifer.

 

Project figures:

 

Total Catchment - 637m2

 

Total Attenuation - 22.72m3

 

This equates to 0.036m3 of attenuation per m2 of catchment. When modelled with an appropriate conservative estimate of infiltration rate (5 x 10^-5m/s) this equates to around the 1 in 100 rainfall event being managed in the system.

 

How have you engaged the community?

 

A huge part of a school success story is always engagement, which should be a fundamental part of every design project but when it comes to schools it’s particularly valuable for us to get an understanding of particular learning and play needs right from the beginning. Play is such an important part of the enjoyment of childhood as well as supporting social, developmental and learning aspects of education.

 

At Moulsecoomb, continuous engagement has been a essential part of the process for our client and as a result, the project has been very well received by everyone involved including local artists, community groups and school children. The school is often used as a site for community initiatives outside of teaching hours. The new rainscape has already proved to be a valuable facility for various extra-circular activities and clubs for both children and their families.