Award-winning structures from the past, such as the glass and steel Pimlico School in London, have not always proved winners in the long run. Such schools have sometimes been cold in winter, and noisy and unbearably hot in the summer. For the Government's Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) however, the real risks are not associated with innovation, but with shoddy design. Some of the new cash going into schools has already helped to spread a rash of unpleasant, badly drawn buildings with minimal architectural input.
"What you're getting is patchy performance," says Jon Rouse from Cabe. "Some of the new buildings are good. Others are atrocious. Some of the new schools in North Wiltshire for example are little better than industrial sheds, without windows. We need to work with the DfES to ensure that it doesn't happen again."
