Passing of Derek Poole

The School notes with sadness that Derek Poole, a former Chair of Architectural Science at the Welsh School of Architecture, has recently passed away.

Derek Poole was Chair of Architectural Science for the Welsh School of Architecture from 1988-1994. He retired in 1994.

Before joining the School he was Deputy County Architect with Hampshire County Council under Colin Stansfield Smith when the first wave of ground-breaking passive energy design schools were built. They created a new vision for schools in an age when the standardisation of design in the building boom of the 1960s remained prevalent.

Their "big roof" schools in Hampshire began with Newlands primary school at Yateley in 1979. Large pitched roofs had an environmental driver, bringing in extra ventilation and light, and could not be further from the system-built flat-roof schools of the time.

Prior to that, he was with DES, where he carried out pioneering work on daylight and acoustics in classrooms.