This new home for a local 4FE secondary school forms the gateway the Bermondsey Project, one of London’s largest build-to-rent developments.

Through a collaborative, school-led process, the project entailed a deep rethink of movement and teaching to facilitate a house-based model across six floors, with highly prominent public frontages. The innovative design had to be reversible to a departmental model and required very close consultation with Grosvenor, the Education Funding Agency, planning and conservation, the existing school, two successive masterplan architects and the local community. We also worked with an educationalist.

The project makes extensive use of colour, pattern and texture to articulate the massing, function and entrances, and includes a shared public landscape. The scheme evolved through extensive change of both masterplan and site, and the confident final design is testament to our collaborative and flexible consultation process, working stringent Education Funding Agency and planning requirements into a contextual language that celebrates the school at the heart of its community.

The school was successfully delivered from Stage 4 by a subsequent EFA-procured, contractor-led team.