Jestico + Whiles back to school for new add-on
Stoke Newington School in Hackney, East London is to have a new sixth-form building designed by Jestico + Whiles.
Hackney Council has granted planning permission for the new L-shaped building, which will be linked to the main school.
Accommodation in the new building will have a large common room and cafe on the ground floor with study areas above, and is designed to accommodate a planned increase in student numbers from 140 to 300.
According to Jestico +Whiles, the design responds to two main challenges: 'Overshadowing by the existing school building to the south, and overlooking of and rights of light to the neighbouring properties to the north'. To overcome these, glazing is concentrated on the south, east and west facades with a double-height void over the cafe bringing daylight deeper into the building. The north facade has four projecting window bays, clad in Corten steel, with side glazing to help bring in natural light. They are also an integral part of the building's natural cross-ventilation strategy.
Jestico + Whiles was responsible for a 2011 RIBA award-winning refurbishment of the existing school, a much-admired example of Sixties' brutalist architecture by Stillman & Eastwick Field.
