DuPont Corian® tells a colourful tale in the new ‘Learning Garden’ at Windmill Primary School.

Over six months, the school has transformed an unused stretch of land behind the bike sheds into an enchanting garden where children can choose their own story and explore their imaginations outdoors. A key feature of the space, is an array of colourful posts and blocks made from DuPont™ Corian® hi-tech surfaces and engraved with lettering to suggest the spines of books in a library.

Conceived by Creative Partnerships, a programme connecting professionals in the arts and sciences with schools, the project brought together the children of Windmill Primary with students at Bucks New University and was supported by the Arts Council and businesses such as DuPont™ Corian® and Blanchford Building Supplies. The ideas were developed in a creative collaboration that also included artists and filmmakers, resulting in an inspiring environment in which the children can actively participate. Richard Chamberlain of Creative Junction and Andrew Spooner, School Co-ordinator, played key roles in bringing the project together.

The elements of the garden created from Corian® were designed and made by undergraduates from the BA (Hons) Furniture: Design & Craft at Bucks New University, with guidance from Phil Hutfield, of the DuPont™ Corian® technical team. Selecting a series of vibrant hues from the 100-strong colour palette for Corian®, the team fabricated the curved ‘book’ spines’ using CNC technology to create the desired lettering effects, as drawn by the children. Corian® is well suited to the project in several key ways, from the colour choice, to the design versatility, to its strength, UV and graffiti resistance together with its ability to be repaired should any damage occur.

Andrew Shenton, Senior Lecturer in Furniture at Bucks New University, said: “The garden is a unique environment where children can walk along different paths and use question posts and other outdoor learning materials, such as sentence builders, character blocks and drawing walls, to help develop their ideas. The entrance fence is particularly enchanting as it represents a book shelf of the children’s favourite and in some cases, imaginary, book titles.”

“The graphics for the book spines were taken directly from the children’s drawings and reproduced on CNC machines at the university using DuPont™ Corian®, a colourful, durable material very popular with designers. The garden is aimed at helping children learn how to tell a story by building the narrative and presenting dilemmas and resolutions. Each phase of the process is represented by question and character posts, sentence builders and drawing walls. It is an exciting project which the students have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in and which will provide enjoyment and wonder for generations to come.”