Step 3: Exploring Options

Exploring options involves thinking about the whole site and looking at the bigger picture rather than one individual space, feature or project. The purpose is to make the most of any opportunities that your investigation has identified and at the same time overcome any site planning or other problems that you have discovered.

 

During this part of the award scheme you will need to:

 

• reflect on your findings from the evaluation

• identify what spaces the school would like to see within their FUTURE school grounds

• explore options for the future arrangement of all these spaces

 

You will be exploring how different spaces link and relate to each other and also to the buildings - changing one space will affect others.  You should also think about how your grounds relate to your surrounding community or landscape.

 

This process is known as whole site planning. The example here shows how it is your opportunity to:

• ask some big challenging questions about your school grounds

• think creatively about your familiar spaces in new and exciting ways

 

A useful way to approach whole site planning is to think in terms of different ‘Zones’, as shown on the example Zoning plan.

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