Surrey Square Infants and Juniors Gates

Surrey Square Infants and Juniors: Design of new school gates and railings

Artists Bill Hudson and Jill Newman were invited into the school to work with every class towards a design for new gates and railings at the front of the school.

The design needed to be fresh and contemporary, yet reflecting and harmonising with period features already characteristic of Surrey Square.

Drawing is used as the basis of most of our projects, so all the children, class by class were taken out to sketch details of their own school’s distinct Dutch-style architecture, the beautiful old iron-work outside the Georgian houses in the square, as well as surrounding trees.

From these three themes, the children were shown how to develop their original sketches into refined and abstracted shapes and patterns: Processes such as print-making, embossing and willow construction were used.

The artists then combined images and elements most popularly used by the children to create motifs in the final design. This enabled every child to feel included in the collaboration.

The design was then approved and sent to metal-work artist Heather Burrell to make up and install. More information on the unveiling of the new school gates can be found on the Creation website.