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Highgate Junior School Building

Bishopswood Road Building, North London, England – education design by Architype Architects

14 Oct 2016

Highgate Junior School Building, London

Phone: +44 20 8340 9193

Location: Cholmeley House, 3 Bishopswood Road, London N6 4PL, UK

Highgate Junior School in North London

Design: Architype Architects

Photos © DennisGilbert/VIEW

14th October 2016 – An impressive development for Highgate School has now been handed-over in time for the start of the new academic year. The inspired scheme by architects, Architype, pays homage to the School’s passion and long-term commitment to achieving excellence in education.

Situated on Bishopswood Road in leafy Highgate, the historical site has long been the home of the Junior School. The plan conceived for the School incorporates an inviting entrance and well-orientated layout, coupled with a continuous connection to the established landscape; creating a strong civic presence on the street side and direct visual links out to the cricket pitch on the west side.

The unfettered presence of the new school sits subtly in its established surroundings, despite the building’s footprint and multi-storey design. With a minimal yet striking entrance, the school building extends into the site incorporating, Ingleholme, a 19th Century villa that has been sensitively refurbished as part of the development. As one of the last of its era in Highgate, Ingleholme has been linked to the new element through a series of glazed units, creating an attractive rhythm to the new public-facing elevations whilst allowing the ornate Portland stone and decorative brickwork of the original building to be on display.

The heart of the school is a generous, naturally lit circulation space to which each element of the school is directly linked. Ceramic flooring, interrupted with colourful marble patterns to reflect the School’s passion for natural sciences command a sense of contemporary grandeur, complemented by seventeen inspired sculptures and reliefs in and around the school, including a stone-carved chameleon on the stone staircase and a bronze cast pangolin hanging from one of the overhead glulam beams, offering a sense of intrigue and thought-provoking fun to the young pupils.

The space assumes a wide variety of uses, from secluded pods for focused study, to amphitheatre style arrangements for informal performance and creative learning experiences. Lit by continuous overhead glazing and sections of floor to ceiling glazing, the feeling of light and airiness is akin to that of an atrium space, without the negative effects of overheating and glare thanks to the smart use of shading and an MVHR (Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery) strategy, which circulates fresh air at optimised temperatures throughout the school, supporting the buildings passive design principles.

Arranged along a west-facing crescent, each standard classroom benefits from open views to the landscape, shaded by protruding vertical fins, constructed from some of the 55,000 handmade bricks that dominate the school façade, and topped by 580m2 of wild flower meadow green roof. In addition to the classrooms are shared specialised areas such as a fully equipped art studio, science labs and design technology workshop. The performing arts department is located entirely in the retrofitted Ingleholme building, for which the primary access has been re-routed internally through the main school, creating an elegant and dynamic junction where the modern finishes of the new building artfully meet the restored Victorian brickwork of Ingleholme, which proudly remains a dominant and influencing lynchpin of the design.

Mark James, School Principal said, ‘The new Junior School is both an exciting challenge and wonderful opportunity. We now have a site which provides the best possible environment for learning and discovery’.

Estates Director, Chris Birbeck, who, along with Simon Martini the School’s Capital Projects Manager, played a key role in shaping the brief and managing the project form the client side said, ‘Architype understood perfectly the ingredients required to create an optimal learning environment; the use of light, space and the incorporation of natural materials into a cleverly considered collection of spaces that flow together naturally and which also commune seamlessly with the outside teaching and play areas.’

Besides adding a layer to Highgate School’s deep-rooted history, the passive approach to the energy strategy will form the basis of a sustainable new future for the School, designed to a 100-year life-cycle. Benefitting from superb air tightness and a robust heating and cooling strategy, the School is providing up to 10% of its own energy, with the integration on photovoltaic solar panels.

Highgate School

First established in 1565, Highgate School has had an important educational presence in North London for over 450 years. Providing all-through education for both girls and boys, the independent day school is split across three age groups, (pre-preparatory, junior and senior) and two principle campuses in the London Borough of Haringey. The original Junior School was built on the present site in 1938 and required extensive modernising to continue providing the high level of education to the new generation of pupils.

Architype

Architype is an architectural practice with offices in London and Hereford. Known for its achievements in educational design and sustainable architecture, the practice was appointed architects after winning a design competition in 2012. Architype was lead consultant to manage the project, through a traditional contract with Wates Construction.

Highgate Junior School London – Building Information

Official Project Title: New Junior School Highgate
Location: Highgate, London N6
Type Of Project: New build & retrofit
Client: Highgate School
Architects: Architype
Contractors: Wates Construction

Project Managers: N/A
QS: Gardiner and Theobald
Planning Consultant: Turley Planning Consultant
Structural Engineers: Built Engineers
M&E consultant: Skelly & Couch LLP
CDMC: TGA Building Consultancy
Acoustician’s: Applied Acoustic Design
Landscape: Katy Staton Landscape Architecture
Artists: Alec and Fiona Peever
Start date on-site: 14th March 2014
Completion: 26th August 2016
Gross internal floor area: 4,288sqm

Construction Type: concrete frame, brickwork and stone cladding, triple glazed curtain walling and windows, pitched meadow planted roof to classrooms, zinc roof to hall and spray applied membrane to flat roofs
Form of contract / procurement: Traditional JCT Standard Building Contract with Quantities 2011 – competitive tender
Cost: Available upon request
Predicted energy demands: data available on request
Any specific environmental targets: Passivhaus principals, BREEAM ‘Very Good’