The expansion of Hayes Primary School provides an exciting and vibrant new extension to a tired and outdated school building; an extension that flickers and glimmers with the reflection of the adjacent trees providing a renewed energy to a building at the heart of its community. The extension provides new accommodation for an additional 105 pupil spaces, comprising of 4 new classrooms, ICT Lab, small hall, new administration facilities as well as new external play and learning spaces. The building's structure uses an engineered, cross-laminated timber system, a material which is also used to form a central storage wall that runs through the new school. This is a 650mm thick wall, made up from horizontally stacked timber panels that give an internal elevation of exposed wood end-grains. The solid-timber pieces are cut and stacked to form openings in the wall, through to the classrooms, and with recesses on alternating sides that form shelves for the school library, seats and reading alcoves as well as storage for classroom equipment and teaching materials. The new landscape areas leading up to the building were designed to be integrated and stimulating learning environments. The flat ground to the front of the site is articulated by raised timber banks, formed out of oak sleepers that rise up to the building and form planting beds, for waterborne plants, that collect rainwater runoff from the roof acting as a sustainable means of drainage. The main façade of the building has a reflective steel brise soleil, which provides shade from solar glare and over-heating to the teaching spaces as well as giving a uniformed building elevation. This mirror-finished screen, positioned at high-level on the building’s façade, reflects the canopies of the mature trees at the front of the school site, giving the illusion that the mass of the building is reduced while simultaneously provide a visually engaging elevation.