New low carbon buildings in the open grasslands of the Stonehenge & Avebury World Heritage Site, providing opportunities for learners of all ages to engage with the prehistoric monuments and landscape.

Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure sitting on Salisbury Plain, in the middle of a dense landscape of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments. The site is owned by the Crown Estate and managed by English Heritage.

AOC were appointed in 2020 by English Heritage to develop the Stonehenge Learning Spatial Strategy, providing a plan for the development of learning at the Stonehenge Visitor Site for the next 10 years. The strategy proposed a range of new learning spaces provided in two new buildings to enhance visitors learning experience at the world famous Scheduled Monument. They aim to encourage a deeper engagement with the Stones and the landscape in which they sit and support a dynamic learning programme that draws on prehistoric archaeology and cutting edge contemporary research.

Stonehenge Learning Centre
The New Learning Centre is a single storey building, that wraps a family of learning spaces around a sheltered courtyard. The 397 sqm building provides a STEM learning lab, a flexible learning studio, a small digital production studio and support facilities.

The courtyard at the centre of the centre uses a line of timber columns to define a space, enclosing and framing the landscape. It creates a secure secluded space for learning as well as providing physical adjacency and visual connections to the World Heritage Site beyond.

The construction minimises the embodied carbon by prioritising natural and compostable materials. Timber is the dominant material, providing the structure and cladding the external walls and colonnade. Monolithic thick clay blocks provide a high level of insulation in the walls, minimising the use of oil-based insulation.

The ‘free-running building’ has no air conditioning or mechanical ventilation and minimal heating required for most of the year. Comfortable temperatures between 19°C and 26°C are delivered with basic building physics: solid walls made from natural clay blocks that serve as insulating and heat storage materials. The structure is heated with the warmth generated by the people in its rooms, its technical equipment and its lighting, with underfloor heating with an air source heat pump providing additional heat during the colder months. Dynamic computational thermal modelling of the teaching spaces was carried out to evaluate the optimal combination of insulation, glazing, ventilation and heating to achieve a stable temperature.

Neolithic Classroom
A reconstructed Neolithic Communal Structure provides a distinct learning space at Stonehenge for a “Neolithic Classroom”. Designed in collaboration with experimental archaeologist Luke Winter it is based on evidence for Neolithic communal buildings found at Durrington Walls in the north east of the World Heritage Site. The archaeological evidence defines the plan of the building, the section is informed speculation using hyper-local, compostable materials.

The 102sqm structure will have a thick thatched roof. An ‘upgraded construction’ has been developed for the build-up of the wattle and daub walls and raised floor with the addition of insulation to improve the thermal performance without compromising the visitor experience. Authentic and carbon positive materials will be ‘hyper-local’, sourced from the immediate locality.

The Neolithic Classroom continues the level access of the step-free site with a level threshold and flat floor. The discrete lighting and servicing in the interior creates an inclusive environment supporting diverse needs.

Invited competition. First Prize. Planning Permission awarded 2024. Completion due 2026.