This project for The London Diocesan Board for Schools combines a new inner-city primary school with new student housing on an existing primary school site just north of Euston in central London.
The student accommodation above funds the replacement of the old primary school buildings (bottom right hand corner in the model opposite), which were retained until the new school was ready, so that teaching could continue on the site throughout construction.
Our design arranges the new accommodation in an L shape around the perimeter of the site with the school (St Mary and St Pancras) occupying the ground and first floor and the residential units (Somerset Court) on three and four storeys above.
A transfer structure at third storey slab level allows services drops to be rationalised before passing through the school accommodation.
Reorganising the site in this way allowed us to retain as much of the site as possible for external play space
The new outdoor facilities include an all-weather sports pitch, informal meeting areas, external classrooms, and a habitat resource garden.
The re-built school provides a stimulating and inspirational internal environment while making the most of views out. Voids between floors promote visual and spatial connections in order to enable a sense of community between different year groups.
The project won the London Planning Award for Best Community-based Planning Initiative. The design up to planning consent was by us (Shepheard Epstein Hunter). Unite was then selected as the development partner and Stride Treglown acted as their delivery architect.
