The new school now accommodates 420 pupils, 56 place nursery and a children’s centre. The new school includes recreation, training and support facilities, designed and mapped to meet the needs of the local residents, making the new school a fantastic and much welcomed community resource. The thrust of early consultation sessions discussed and influenced the siting of the building and how paths and entrances would mesh with the existing infrastructure, to aid movement, increase a sense of place, and ensure anti-social spaces were avoided. Given the very tight surrounding urban grain, the adjacent Kings Estate has always had a very close relationship with Moreland School. We were conscious to not alienate these stakeholders and to ensure that they held on to their sense of the school as a community resource.
Whilst the old school sat back from this building line and did not express a street presence, the new school design is bold and infills this missing gap, giving a building with civic presence and celebrating itself as part of the urban grain. The high quality, robust, brick façade was a reaction to the important siting of the new building within Islington. It adds a richness of quality to the urban fabric and gives Moreland Street a new street frontage. From the outset, the aesthetic of the building strived to have a civic language and presence, through colourful fins, while still expressing the playful nature of a primary school setting.
The building has low energy usage and the design team worked hard to design to first principles of good environmental design, prevalent in all design choices. The school has achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating.
Photography by Jim Stephenson and John Kees Photography
