Holy Trinity Dalston, London
The school represents an assertively urban response to a complex urban problem. Ike Ijeh - Building Magazine
Project Summary
The success of this type of mixed-use project relies on an energetic and collaborative early design process, one that excites all stakeholders to explore bold solutions that can uncover new opportunities. Mark Gabbey - Partner
Above and beyond Holy Trinity demonstrates a bold but pragmatic approach to delivering new homes and school places in tight urban locations where space is at a premium. The design incorporates 101 apartments above the two-form entry primary school, separated by a doubleheight, open-air play-deck that significantly increases the spaces available for outside learning, sports and play. The play-deck contributes to the school’s exciting new identity, separating it from the residential above, projecting its civic role and defining it as a community hub and resource.
Left: View from Dalston Square
With the apartments above, incorporating a rooftop garden and views across London, providing the funding cross-subsidy for the construction of the school,
this design solution creates a vibrant mixed-use development and offers an alternative financial delivery vehicle for the provision of much needed school places, homes and community facilities without public subsidy. The school now includes a nursery for 30 children aged from three months and an additional 210 primary school places. Despite the increase in footprint and the addition of new homes on the site, the school now has more external play spaces than before and is now also available for extended community access. The successful integration of uses onto a single site without compromise is the result of a careful, iterative design process and an in-depth understanding of how both the educational and residential elements can work together to deliver a successful mixed-use development - a process of apt design and placemaking.
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Top left to bottom right. Concept - early iteration of mix-use development; Model - wedge shaped residential form over the school; Sketch - early perspective of school entrance; Model - larger wedge shaped form evolves as funding fell away; Section - introduction of the rooftop play-deck; Perspective bold expression of the play-deck; Axonometric - how the MUGA and playspace works with central vertical circulation; Visualisation - pre-planning iteration.
Design process
The design for the School evolved over a period of 3 years as the architects wanted to provide everything on the School’s wish list. The play/ sports deck caught everyone’s imagination once the idea was floated. Inigo Woolf - Chief Executive, LDBS
A perfectly genius proposal. The design for the redevelopment of Holy Trinity School is pioneering and cleverly tackles the need to provide more housing and more primary school places. Boris Johnson - Mayor of London
Finding the right solution What started in 2009 as a funded expansion of a one form entry primary school was later subject to funding cuts and therefore required an alternative financial model that would deliver 210 additional pupil places. The success of the resulting solution is testament to a design team that asked ‘what if?’ and a client who was willing to ask themselves ‘what if we do?’ Our early iterations in the design process involved allocating part of the site for residential development, an increasingly common cross-subsidy approach, and then placing the residential directly on top of the school. The compromises were unacceptable to both the operation of the school and the desirability of the residential apartments. We then proposed a radically different strategy. By vertically stacking the residential block above the new
school and then separating them with an innovative double-height play deck, the school could occupy the majority of the existing site, thereby maintaining its presence and individual identity within the community, increase the amount of outside space available and maximise land value through an air-rights development. This shift in thinking resulted in more generous and better organised classrooms and facilities, an increase of 62% in outside space for learning, play and sports and an improved cross-subsidy with the number of apartments increasing from 31 to 101. The design also completes Dalston Square with a form and mass more appropriate to the new mid-rise, mid-density urban typology and makes a significant contribution to the overall regeneration of the area.
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Residents benefit from a roof garden and views across London.
101 apartments cross-subsidise 100% of the school construction costs.
A double-height play deck & MUGA significantly increases on-site school play space.
The school occupies the majority of the existing site and retains a strong community presence.
Layered uses
Residential entrances at each end creates an uninterrupted school zone.
Balconies at first floor serve KS2 classrooms and provide shelter for Reception.
The main school entrance is at the centre to the school, a focal point in the elevation.
KS1 classrooms open directly onto a playground with a tree house, climbing wall and pond.
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How the model works
Each design decision was considered from first principles, with the aim of delivering the optimum arrangement for each user. This encouraged the design team to challenge conventions and to look for new ways of doing things that avoided the common restrictions of small urban sites. Martin Howlett - Partner
Above: Roseberry Place (West) elevation showing double height open-air play-deck between school and residential; Above right: Ground floor plan of the school.
Integrating uses In order to integrate the different uses, it was crucial that we built on our existing primary school experience as well as our residential and development knowledge to understand how a mixed-use school design could work best. By breaking with convention and proposing such an alternative design, every element needed to be tested. It provoked a real examination of how this primary school would operate, what would be required, where and when; and how the interface between the school and residential could be designed such that they were separate in use yet integrated to deliver a cohesive design and street scene within the urban context. By locating the residential entrances and circulation
cores at each end of the building, the space in-between provided maximum flexibility for the layout of the school. The school is arranged with the main entrances, east and west, located at the centre of the plan and where the vertical circulation intersects the horizontal north-south corridors at ground and first floor levels. Classrooms, hall, offices and other spaces are arranged off the central corridors whilst the vertical circulation connects through to the second floor play-deck and MUGA. Early Learning is both integral yet independent of the primary school, with its own playground serving each of the Early Years rooms. Key Stage 1 (KS1) classrooms are located across the corridor at ground level with each
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AA Key 1. School entrance
School
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2. Residential entrance
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3. Early years
Residential
4. Reception classroom 5. Classroom (KS1 & 2)
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6. Dining hall
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7. Kitchen
Residential
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classroom directly opening onto a covered outdoor space, providing all weather teaching and play. Key Stage 2 (KS2) classrooms and staff offices are located at first floor, each with generous outside balcony space. The second-floor play-deck with a MUGA, running tracks, playground, climbing wall and stage provides substantial outside space often lost in urban locations. The arrangement of the play-deck, as well as of the dining hall and kitchen, are such that each can be used independently of the school for community use with their own access and ancillary facilities.
a different view of London, culminating in a communal roof garden with panoramic views of the entire city. Bringing this mix of uses onto one site presented an exciting opportunity to reduce the on-going environmental impact of building operation. The daytime use of the school combined with the night-time occupation of the homes enables the on-site Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant to work efficiently, serving the two complimentary uses with renewable energy as well as feeding surplus power back into the grid.
The residential apartments sit above the play-deck. Arranged over fourth to tenth floors, they each capture
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Left: Nursery external play space; Top-left: Second floor play deck; Bottom-left: Outside teaching space; Bottom-middle: Running track adjacent to seating and MUGA; Bottom-right: Access to play-deck and MUGA.
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Key 2a. South stair and lifts 2b. North stair and lifts
10. 3-bed apartment
Top left to right: School East entrance; dining hall; vertical circulation. Middle: Typical residential floor plan. Bottom: Section AA. Opposite top: Balcony views South across the city; Opposite left: Rooftop garden with panoramic views for residents; Opposite right: Dedicated residential entrance to North.
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Holy Trinity Church
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Roseberry Place
9. 2-bed apartment
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Beechwood Road
8. 1-bed apartment
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The decks offer the most compelling precedents for how schools can exploit London’s housing boom to embed themselves into the limited space offered by the capital’s dense inner city context. Ike Ijeh - Building Magazine
Applying the model
Taking forward lessons learnt Holy Trinity presents a fresh approach to the challenges faced by many local authorities, from which we would draw the following key lessons to implement on future mixed-use development of a similar nature: •
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Engage meaningfully with all stakeholders to build broad support for development.
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Respond to each site and client specifically to avoid the pitfalls and missed value of a standard model.
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Ensure that the team has equally in-depth expertise of all uses so that one doesn’t compromise the other.
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Maximise added value and secure the client’s interests through early work with an independent designer.
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Address the specific needs and culture of the local community to make an exciting and valuable contribution to the area.
Since completion, the Holy Trinity project has been recognised internationally with visitors from many countries seeking to understand how the uses integrate successfully and how the broader community benefits have been realised. By retaining the excitement of the original design concept, the development has exceeded many expectations. Providing such exemplary facilities has raised aspirations, celebrates the joy of learning and demonstrates the value of creative thinking about the way we regenerate public land in a sustainable way.
Featured in: Building Magazine, Building Design and the Architect’s Journal
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Architecture & Design The Old School Exton Street London SE1 8UE 020 7261 9577 studio@rocktownsend.co.uk
rocktownsend.co.uk
Project: Location: Client: Developer: Site Area: GIA:
Holy Trinity CofE Primary School Beechwood Road, Dalston, London London Diocesan Board for Schools Telford Homes Plc 0.45Ha School - 3,260 sqm; Residential - 10,409 sqm