28 | CASE STUDY: STOKE NEWINGTON SCHOOL | BRICKS & MORTAR Read a related story: click here Playing to existing strengths
The new sixth-form centre at an inner-city London school has been designed to complement the 1960s style of the original buildings
associated costs of the additional lift, fire stair and WCs that would otherwise have been required. The new sixth-form centre
STOKE NEWINGTON SCHOOL is a successful inner-city school in London with a specialism in media, arts and science. In 2011, Jestico + Whiles was appointed by the school to create a new dedicated sixth-form centre on site to deal with growing student numbers at sixth-form level. The practice had previous experience of working with the school, having redeveloped the entire building as part of the building schools for the future (BSF) programme in 2010. The reason for the extension
ABOVE: a dark grey rainscreen cladding solution was selected for the sixth-form centre
was the school’s need for more space to cater for a rise in sixth-form students from 140 to 300 pupils since BSF completion. The solution was a two-storey, L-shaped building of approximately 600 sqm that abuts the school boundary to the north, maximising the available space to form a small courtyard between the new building and the existing school, and responding to similar courtyards used in the original 1967 brutalist building design. Additionally, the new building connects to the existing school at both ground- and first-floor levels, benefiting from the use of the existing stair, lift and WCs – meaning the new building was able to avoid the
connects to the northern end of the existing school and is partly located in the shadow of the adjacent three-storey building. It was therefore important that the design maximise the amount of natural daylight within the new building. The strategy was to incorporate most of the glazing in the south, east and west façades that overlook the new sixth-form courtyard to the west and the reconfigured external space to the east. Roof lights above the ground-floor offices and WCs and first-floor study area provide additional natural daylight to the northern parts of the building where there are few windows, preventing overlooking issues with the neighbours on Satar Mews. The shape of the new sixth-
form building echoes that of the existing brutalist school structure. The orthogonal-shaped volume branches out of the building as a new wing in keeping with the plan form of the original school where individual wings form courtyards. The proposed massing respects the existing buildings’ architectural language and does not atempt to compete with the bold form of the boiler house nearby. The striking boiler house is one of the most admired elements of the original school design and the design treatment of the new sixth-form building is deliberately deferential to it, picking up on the proportions of its windows among other things. Headteacher Annie Gammon
said: “The sixth-form block has provided a high-quality space which is both beautiful and functional. It is contributing hugely to the success of our sixth form and our aim of achieving
excellence for all students. The study areas are very well used before, during and after school.” As with the entrance building
completed in 2010, the new sixth- form centre draws its inspiration from the material choices of the existing building, but makes use of contemporary materials which sit comfortably alongside the bold brutalist architecture of the original school. Given the proximity of the entrance building, it was also important that the material palete chosen for the sixth-form building sat well with the modern additions so that all three elements read coherently alongside one another. A dark grey rainscreen cladding
solution was selected because it followed the language set by the new entrance building (Corten rainscreen panels) and didn’t compete with the masonry and bush-hammered concrete of the original building. The cladding system is made up of fibre cement boards, an appropriate material that enables the new sixth-form building to ‘speak for itself’ and neither mimic the robust masonry and concrete ‘brutality’ of the original 1967 building nor undermine the powerful language established by the Corten extension. The Corten bay windows on the north elevation provide a subtle link between the two buildings and their architectural language. Flashes of bold yellow are used
on the window reveals and soffits in order to enliven an otherwise dark façade. These are in keeping with the colour used on the 2010 entrance building, which in turn was designed to reference the yellow used on the theatre of the existing school building. As with the junction between new and old to the 2010 Corten
Images © Tim Crocker
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