Imaginative refurbishment to a primary school in West Hampstead. The extension to the existing building provides a new resource block containing library, studios, group rooms and music rooms, incorporating flexible, well lit spaces for performance, assembly, sport and study.

The proposal astutely references the existing buildings and reinstates the school’s relationship with the adjacent Kilburn Grange park by using a palette of natural materials. The existing school buildings are Victorian and include the main two storey ‘board school’ building and a separate single storey building built as a nursery. This building has a distinctly dinkier feel to the main block, relating to the scale of the young children that would have been using it. The roof is broken down into several smaller elements with a distinctive ridge line to the main hall and pyramid shaped hipped roofs to the corners which create small pavilion like structures. Our new addition draws from the scale and expression of these elements to define the new hall and library. Another distinctive feature of the school is the quality and variety of natural daylighting, large windows at high and low level face different directions creating a changing pattern of lighting effects during the course of the day. Our new extension learns from this and provides a variety of openings through which to catch glimpses of the sky, the clouds and the trees beyond. Small niches and window seats create places for children to sit and read whilst looking out towards the park.