In May 2014 we were invited by the Girls' Day School Trust to take this project forward and create a Performing Arts Centre for Putney High School. Designed to Stage D by GDST and Open London, the design wraps a new skin around the existing building to provide extra storage, teaching and access facilities, together with balconies, retractable seating and a dividing partition, and create a flexible, highly attractive new facility for performance, music and presentation. Reversible oak and fabric wall panelling allows the School to adjust the degree of reflection and absorption to suit speech and music. The main space is equipped with a sophisticated lighting and audio visual system.
The School presented its first Christmas show in the transformed Performing Arts Centre in December 2015: 'We Will Rock You', based on the Queen West End musical, delivered an impressive multi-media performance, using the space to its full potential. Suzie Longstaff, headmistress, tweeted: 'Our new Performing Arts Centre is truly amazing. 'We will rock you' will go down in the history books. Truly awesome'. The project is a finalist in the AJ Retrofit Awards 2016 for 'Best Education Building'.
