The Stephen Perse Foundation welcomed Bidwells’ offer to work with them in partnership, with a view to becoming coeducational.

To facilitate this, a new teaching block was required, principally to provide 10 new classrooms, a sports hall and dance performance space.

What we did

• The result of an options appraisal for the site has resulted in a scheme which commences at basement level, to reduce impact on neighbouring residential properties, and includes a full-size sports hall, finishing at first floor roof level. Also in this space is the associated changing facilities, and a dance and performance space
• The footprint of this new sports hall has encroached on the existing netball court, and so a competition-standard multi-use games area is re-provided at roof-level, above the column-free sports hall

 Result

•  The new classrooms are provided on the front elevation only, with direct connections through to the adjacent science block, providing genuinely connected and accessible buildings
• The scheme is designed as a hybrid CLT and steel structure, with a main façade of brick cladding sympathetic to the surroundings and elements of more contemporary bronze and glazed cladding 
• The external landscaping includes a library courtyard, running track and additional cycle parking to promote sustainable travel by staff and pupils
• The project was delivered within the restricted confines of the school’s operational site 
• Key stages of construction were integrated into the curriculum and pupils were engaged in the works