Schools Brochure

Schools

We are architects, engineers, designers and urbanists.

Placemaking for a Modern World

We design at every scale and at every stage in the process of placemaking, from visioning to briefing, design, delivery and operation. The places we create are distinct; social, natural, useful and beautiful – a reflection of humanity.

The practice has grown to over 1,200 people operating from a collaborative network of global studios, all creative hubs connected to the cities and regions they serve.

BDP has an enviable track record of delivering innovative, sustainable projects in a number of sectors and for a diverse range of clients – both public and private, they include Google, AstraZeneca, Netflix, PwC, The Royal Albert Hall, IKEA, Berkeley Homes, Great Ormond Street Hospital and many more.

We have a reputation for the design of exemplar places of learning, illustrated by our award winning schools.

Francis Holland School

Nurturing

Our approach places the user at the heart of the design process to create the very best learning environments that enthuse and nurture the people who use them. Our schools are inclusive, sociable and accessible for all. Our holistic approach delivers indoor spaces that are environmentally comfortable and controllable, usable and inspiring outdoor space and leading edge sports facilities.

Our educational buildings always exceed the modern requirements of 21st century pedagogy and adopt ultra-low carbon, sustainable design principles informed by innovative BIM technology.

Wardle Academy

Quality learning

Our design philosophy has produced an unrivalled body of work, representing quality and quantity; our schools have achieved outstanding levels of user satisfaction as evidenced by the post occupancy evaluations we undertake.

Maidenhill Primary School

Smythe Library, Tonbridge School

Location Tonbridge, UK

Client Tonbridge School

Cost £7m

Completion 2016

Refurbishment and reordering of a 1960s library building at Tonbridge School to provide a new entrance lobby, open flexible learning spaces and connections with outside spaces.

Barton Science Centre, Tonbridge School

Location

Tonbridge, UK

Client Tonbridge School

Cost

£10.8m

Completion 2019

The design for the new Science Centre at Tonbridge School builds on the school’s rich history and tradition while looking to the future to inspire students to develop a career in science. The building has been extended to the north to provide additional teaching space, while laboratories and demonstration space in the existing building have been fully refurbished. At the heart of the new design is a shared forum which links the physics, biology and chemistry departments through a three storey atrium. This open and flexible area hosts a wide range of events and activities.

Rather than developing a new science centre on a greenfield site, we were able to convince the school community to reuse their existing heritage asset and continue teaching science at the historic heart of the school.”

Daniel Walder Associate Architect

Wardle Academy

Location Manchester, UK

Client Watergrove Trust

Completion 2021

The Sports Hall Redevelopment project at Wardle Academy transforms a redundant sports hall space into a test-bed for new forms of teaching and learning. This imaginative reuse provides flexible teaching spaces, a design technology studio and cafe arranged around a double-height social space for dining, informal learning and events. This central space is animated by the ‘learning steps’, a processional staircase with integrated seating leading to a refurbished mezzanine level, offering further space for dining as well as audience seating for presentations and performances.

St John Bosco Arts College

Location Liverpool, UK

Client Liverpool City Council

Cost £18m

Completion 2014

St John Bosco Arts College is a new build secondary 1,100 place Catholic girls’ school in Croxteth, Liverpool. The new school is housed in a three storey single span column free environment, which contains an exciting mix of learning environments and social spaces, focusing on a sculpted landscape at the heart of the school.

Monmouth Secondary School

Location

Ar

BSE

Monmouth, Monmouthshire, UK

Client

Interserve Construction Limited for Monmouthsire

Council

Monmouth Secondary School comprises a three storey school building placed at the western end, close to the town centre and to raise it out of the flood plain. The building is orientated to frame the church spire within the double height glazing of the immersion room.

The building lies within a re-landscaped site providing a mixture of social and informal, recreational and sport facilities, together with outdoor dining facilities and outdoor classrooms.

The Academy of St Nicholas

Location Liverpool, UK

Client Bovis Lend Lease for Liverpool City Council Cost

The Academy of St Nicholas is a new specialist school with 1350 pupils that serves as a national centre of business and enterprise.

The building has been designed around a central social heartspace which is the focus of the academy’s core activities, and provides a place where users feel a sense of belonging. The academy’s business and enterprise specialism is embedded across the whole curriculum and the design is based upon learning through real life working environments.

Faith Schools Joint Campus

Ar ID La

Location East Renfrewshire, UK

Client

Heron Bros for East Renfrewshire Council

Cost £15m

Completion 2017

The Faith Schools Joint Campus is unique, in that it brings together Jewish and Catholic Primary Schools onto a single, shared campus. The BDP design respects and nutures the young people’s individual religious faiths, whilst delivering inspiring spaces for learning, teaching and social integration.

Waid Academy

Location Fife, UK

Client BAM Construction for Fife Council

Cost £21m

Completion 2017

Waid Academy is one of six secondary schools and two primaries which make up Fife Council’s Building Fife’s Future Programme, Waid Academy will be a ground-breaking, collaborative project, which will bring a huge range of public services under one roof such as a local office for the council, the library and a base for police officers.

SFT Pathfinder Schools

Location Eastwood, East Renfrewshire and Lasswade, Midlothian, UK

Client East Renfrewshire Council and Midlothian Council

Cost

£34m

Completion 2013

Eastwood High School and Lasswade High School are among the first secondary schools to open through the Scotland’s Schools for the Future building programme, and provide first class learning and community facilities for 2,700 pupils and the wider population.

The project brought together two councils to share experience and knowledge, to design and deliver innovative cost effective solutions for new secondary schools with an emphasis on community benefit and sustainability.

Marr College

Location South Ayrshire, UK

Client South Ayrshire

Council

Cost £28m

Completion 2017

The Grade B listed Marr College in Troon has been extensively refurbished and a new extension building added.

Work included converting two open central courtyards into three storey high learning plazas, and rationalising the Troon Community Sports Hub to accommodate two all-weather rugby and hockey pitches as well as other community sports facilities.

A new technical wing has been constructed at the rear of the original building with an atrium slot created between the two buildings.

Francis Holland School Centre for Creative Learning

Ar

Location London, UK

Client

Francis Holland School Cost £1.2m

The new Centre for Creative Learning has been redeveloped to provide additional academic space within the school’s constrained Sloane Square site in Central London. Our design combines attractive garden spaces at first floor level with informal learning in the space below. BDP’s masterplan for the school includes a three-storey extension comprising a performing arts space, ICT lab and refurbishment of the library to create a flexible, social and collaborative space.

I am delighted to see the realisation of our new Centre for Creative Learning and Centre for Creative Enterprise. It is so exciting to see new spaces emerging within our school for our girls to develop their imagination, intellect and wellbeing.”

Lucy Elphinstone Headmistress, Francis Holland School

Highbury Grove School

Location

Ar BSE

La Su

London, UK

Client Transform Schools / London Borough of Islington

Cost £34m

Completion

2010

Highbury Grove is a comprehensive school specialising in Business Enterprise, with a sixth form for 300 students. The building has a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’, generating 20% on site renewables. It is co-located with Samuel Rhodes, a special educational needs school for 60 students which opened in September 2009.

Bridge Academy Hackney

Location

London, UK

Client

DCSF and UBS

Investment Bank

Completion 2008

This academy for 1,150 pupils is situated on an inner city brownfield site, in the heart of a multi-ethnic community in the London Borough of Hackney. Sited for a localised pupil base, the school is accessible for community use out of school hours and acts as a regenerator for an area which has suffered neglect in recent times.

The constrained site along the Regent’s Canal has driven the design of an innovative vertical school. Like a piece of architectural origami, the design does not replace ground space, but displaces it upwards to ensure each roof space presents useful learning spaces.

Devonshire Primary School

Location Blackpool, UK

Client Blackpool MBC

Cost £6.5m

Completion 2006

The new Devonshire School is the first adaptation of our generic multi-level vertical Exemplar School, designed for a tight urban site, which we christened the Beehive School.

The school is orientated around an internal street from east to west, so that the learning houses face north, benefiting from good day lighting but not overheating, and the play decks face south, where they benefit from the sun but also provide shelter and shade when required.

Hampden Gurney School

Location

Ar BSE

La Li

London, UK

Client Jarvis, Holloway

White Allom Ltd

Cost £6m

Completion 2002

A groundbreaking city centre school and residential scheme. The school is created on six levels, with the classrooms on three levels above the new ground floor nursery, and a group teaching room on the roof. Children move up the school as they progress through the years. The school also includes an administration area, library and multimedia room, with the hall, music room, chapel, and drama rooms at lower ground floor level.

The Marlowe Academy

Ar

Location Ramsgate, UK

Client Roger de Haan Kent County Council DCSF

Cost £21m

The new academy for 1200 pupils from 11 to 16, focuses its three teaching faculties around an open performance space, which can also be used as social, learning and informal teaching space. This heart of the building opens up the business and performing arts ‘specialisms’ to the public.

Abraham Darby Sports and Learning Community

Location

Ironbridge, UK

Client Kier for Wiltshire

County Council

Cost

£30m Academy

£5m Sport Centre

Completion 2012

Abraham Darby combines a 1,050 place Academy, with a 420 place primary school and a community leisure centre, set on a sloping site at the gateway to the Ironbridge World Heritage Site in Telford. The scheme exploits the levels to produce a highly compact design, thereby freeing up as much space as possible for external play, learning and sports provision.

Richard Rose Morton Academy

Location Cumbria, UK

Client Kier for Cumbria County Council

Cost £25m

Completion 2011

Located in a suburban area to the west of Carlisle, the new school accommodates 1,150 pupils and a 250 place sixth form. Conceived as a butterfly plan the open form of the building welcomes pupils from both the south and north. The south incorporates the main entrance, an open plaza and urban orchard which provides an appropriate green space between the academy and the adjacent Wigton Road.

Ar

BSE

Location Wiltshire, UK

Client Wiltshire County

Council & Kier

Education

Cost

£32m

Completion

Wellington Academy caters for 1,150 students ranging from 11 to 18. The design provided a 350 seat theatre which is part of the performing arts cluster together with business & enterprise spaces. The plan is organised to create sense and order whilst providing a wide variety of spaces for formal, informal and serendipitous learning. The design responds to microclimate and maximises natural ventilation and sustainable timber construction to form the central hub space.

Wellington Academy

Mulberry Park Community Hub

Location Bath, UK

Client Rydon Construction Limited Cost £10m

Completion

A striking beacon building for the community of Bath’s Foxhill Estate, combining a 210 place primary school, 70-place children’s nursery and state-of-the art community facilities. The community facilities were developed through close consultation with local residents and include flexible multi-functional spaces, café, clinic space, fitness suite and business enterprise space.

“ This unique project is a focal point for the communities of Foxhill, Combe Down and Mulberry Park. There has been a lot of community engagement from the outset to ensure that the design provides a building that they feel proud of.”

Chris Kenny Project Architect

Teddington Secondary School

Location

Middlesex, UK

Client

London Borough of Richmond

Cost £29m

Completion 2010

A social, educational community for 1,200 pupils on the banks of the River Thames within the footprint of one hockey pitch maximising the site and ensuring the existing school and community facilities could continue while the new building was constructed. The design creates two wings of flexible teaching space providing five levels of identical teaching accommodation formed as enclosed classrooms and workspace linked to open breakout learning zones looking out over the heart of the school.

Culcheth High School BSF

Location Warrington, UK

Client Warrington Borough Council

Cost £24m

Completion 2010

Culcheth High School is a one-school Pathfinder for 11–18 year olds on the site of an existing school. Key features are a high-tech humanities and conference centre, sports hall, dance studio and fitness suite as well as state of the art learning space and meeting rooms.

Teaching spaces employ passive environmental principles such as natural ventilation and high thermal mass to create an energy efficient and pleasant environment to study.

Maidenhill Primary School

Location

East Renfrewshire, UK

Client

East Renfrewshire

Council

Cost

£12.2m

Completion 2019

This new two stream primary school and early years project sits at the heart of the new Maidenhill development in Newton Mearns and accommodates over 400 pupils plus a nursery for 120 children. A calming internal environment has been designed to accommodate sensory differences. Flexible learning areas include cosy snugs, a birdhouse hideaway for both individual and peer learning, and a larger auditorium.

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“East Renfrewshire Council aspires to provide the best learning environments for children, and on this project we were able to create a building that supports the school to achieve its educational and societal aspirations through architecture.”

Lindsey Mitchell Architect, Glasgow Studio

Selected Awards

BDP has won over 1,000 awards for design quality –a selection of our awards is listed below.

RIAS Award

• Maidenhill Primary School (2021)

RIBA National Award

• Francis Holland School Centre for Creative Learning (2021)

RIBA Regional Award

• Francis Holland School Centre for Creative Learning (London, 2021)

• Barton Science Centre, Tonbridge School (South East, 2021)

• Mulberry Park Community Hub (Shortlisted, South West 2021)

• St John Bosco Arts College (North West, 2015)

• Enterprise South Liverpool Academy (North West, 2014)

• Richard Rose Morton Academy (North West, 2012)

RICS Regional Award

• Mulberry Park Community Hub (South West, 2019)

ACE Engineering Excellence Award

• Bridge Academy, Hackney (2009)

AJ Award

• Mulberry Park Community Hub (Shortlisted 2019)

AJ Retrofit Award

• Smythe Library, Tonbridge School (2017)

AJ100

• St John Bosco Arts College (Building of the Year Finalist, 2015)

Constructing Excellence Wales (CEW) Award

• Monmouth Secondary School, Digital Construction Award (2019)

Civic Trust Award

• Richard Rose Morton Academy (Commendation, 2013)

• Highbury Grove (Commendation, 2011)

Education Buildings Scotland

• Waid Academy (Project of the Year, 2018)

Education Estates Award

• Wardle Academy (Refurbishment of the Year 2022)

FX International Design Award

• Smythe Library, Tonbridge School (Interior Lighting Design, 2017)

Glasgow Institute of Architects

• Ayr Academy / Marr College (Education and Conservation Award, 2021)

Insider Property Award North West

• Wardle Academy (Architect Practice of the Year, 2022)

Learning Places Scotland

• Maidenhill Primary School (Inspiring Learning Spaces, 2021)

• Maidenhill Primary School (Architectural Practice of the Year, 2021)

LIT Design Awards

• Smythe Library, Tonbridge School (2021)

Manchester Society Of Architects Design Award

• Enterprise South Liverpool Academy (Building of the Year, 2014)

Mix Interiors Award

• St John Bosco Arts College (Public Sector Interior Project of the Year, 2015)

NLA Wellbeing Prize

• Francis Holland School Centre for Creative Learning (2020)

SCALA Civic Building of the Year

• Culcheth High School (Highly Commended, 2011)

• Bridge Academy, Hackney (2009)

Scottish Design Awards

• Maidenhill Primary School (Highly Commended Education, 2020)

Scottish Property Awards

• Maidenhill Primary School (Architectural Excellence, 2019)

Timber in Construction Award

• Abraham Darby Sports and Learning Community (Structure Of The Year, Gold Award, 2013)

Scott Mackenzie

Principal, Head of Education, Head of Glasgow

scott.mackenzie@bdp.com

Sue Emms

Principal, North Region Chair

sue.emms@bdp.com

Chris Harding Chair

chris.harding@bdp.com

Cover: Barton Science Centre, Tonbridge School

Photography: Nick Caville, Craig Auckland / Fotohaus, David Barbour, Ant Clausen, Doublespace Photography, Hufton + Crow, Roland Halbe, Philip Vile, Michael Whitestone, Terrence Zhang

Key to professions:

Ar Architecture

Ac Acoustics

BSE Building Services Engineering

C&S Civil and Structural Engineering

DM Design Management

GD Graphic Design

InD Inclusive Design

ID Interior Design

La Landscape Architecture

Li Lighting

Ma Masterplanning

Pl Planning

Su Sustainability

UD Urban Design

of Education

“ Our world-class education spaces act to inspire children, teachers and communities. They create benefits such as improved health, motor skills development, psychological wellbeing and positive behaviour whilst being exciting places to learn.”

Scott Mackenzie Head

We are architects, engineers, designers and urbanists.