Kelmscott School, Walthamstow
Kelmscott School is a large secondary school which was included in the first phase of the London Borough of Waltham Forest's BSF programme.
Bouygues UK worked on the transformation of the existing 900-place facility, extending and remodeling it to provide modern ccommodation, fit for 21st century learning.
The brief concentrated on transforming the original sixties building to feature a highly prominent new entrance, coupled with new performing arts, catering and dining facilities to improve both the image and functionality of the existing school, and its identity within the community. An internet café for students and visiting parents is located at the main entrance, where the full height glazing provides a welcoming and contemporary appearance and also acts as a shop window to display the school's work.
The new 'street' which runs from the entrance through the whole school, links the buildings and provides an easily legible circulation axis. The design has taken advantage of the existing external doors within each classroom, adding an external covered walkway around the perimeter of the building, which has significantly improved circulation in the internal corridors. The whole scheme has also been envigorated with a fresh colour scheme to unite the disparate buildings, providing a series of vibrant, brightly daylit spaces along the internal street for dining or breakout. These areas link to the key shared spaces, such as the hall, formal dining area and learning resource space. The new dining spaces look out over the preserved mature landscape whilst the new external amphitheatre takes advantage of the south facing location to provide further informal seating as well as a performance area.
As well as achieving a BREEAM target of Very Good, the design aimed to re-use and improve as much of the existing buildings as possible. The proposals identified the minimum number of alterations required to achieve maximum value in the existing buildings, thereby maximising the budget available for new build extension.
Kelmscott School was awarded the inaugural 'Best Remodelled School' by PfS.
