The British School in Rio de Janeiro is a century-old international day school. Its expansion onto a third campus – a former sports club in the affluent Barra district – required efficient use of a constrained site, adding teaching space for nearly 600 pupils aged 11 to 18 while preserving valuable outdoor space. The new senior school building nimbly spans over an active landscape of sporting and leisure facilities.

Built as the first phase of an extensive masterplan for the campus, the long, low-rise bar of classrooms and communal spaces establishes a new public face to the campus and provides a flexible, climate-responsive environment for learning, sport and community use. Its design is rooted in Brazil’s long engagement with architectural Modernism, in particular its more rational, disciplined strands. This influence is apparent in a clean, orthogonal form and a restrained material palette, with animation provided by the activities of staff and students.

Organisation and expression
The primary organisational move was to place the three-storey senior school along the northern edge of the site, giving a strong visual presence to the campus at its entrance on a suburban street. Set behind a boundary wall and framed by dense planting, the building acts as both a secure perimeter to the campus and a clear point of arrival. The linear configuration, measuring roughly 130 metres by 20 metres, also preserves open space and existing sports infrastructure within the campus, spanning across a swimming pool.  

A pronounced horizontal emphasis is underscored by continuous external balconies running along the façades, which serve as circulation routes and social spaces while providing essential solar shading. Their depth was carefully modelled to block direct sunlight during school hours, reducing heat gain and supporting a low-energy strategy. These shaded decks give depth and proportion to the long elevations, while encouraging students and staff to move through the building in close contact with the outdoors.

At one end, the decks are visually anchored by a triple-height sports hall – a simple, robust volume with largely blank white facades that make a counterpoint to the finer grain of the classroom wings in the overall composition. The spatial arrangement and architectural composition took some inspiration from the De La Warr Pavilion in southern England, whose restoration was led by JMP. The hall was a major requirement of the brief; built to international specifications, it was used by the British team as a preparation camp during the Olympic Games in Rio.

Internally, teaching spaces are arranged in compact clusters, typically as back-to-back classrooms separated by open-air staircases and landings. This porous organisation ensures daylight and cross-ventilation penetrate deep into the plan, a crucial response to Rio’s tropical climate.

Active landscape
At ground level, the building is lifted on columns in key areas, allowing the main route into the campus to pass beneath it. Offices and a glazed library sit deeper within the plan, shaded by the overhanging floors above. Additional through-routes cut across the footprint, maintaining permeability and visual connections between gardens, sports areas and teaching spaces. The footprint was also shaped by existing features, notably a swimming pool that the building partially oversails, integrating old and new elements into a coherent whole.

Landscape plays an essential role in both environmental performance and spatial experience. New trees planted on three sides of the building create shaded outdoor classrooms and reduce solar gain, while softening the transition between architecture and open space. As visitors approach, shadows from planting and balconies animate the façades, combined with the visible movement of students along the walkways.

Entry through the perimeter wall leads to a glass-roofed porte-cochère and then into a triple-height void open on two sides. This atmospheric semi-external space functions as a gathering point and a moment of orientation, encapsulating the building’s emphasis on collective life and the interplay of architecture and purposeful outdoor space.