Centre for Creative Learning, Francis Holland School
- Location
- London, UK
- Client
- Escuela Francis Holland
- Expertise
- Acoustics
- Architecture
- Building Services Engineering
- Design Management
- Interior Design
- Landscape Architecture
- Civil & Structural Engineering
- Completion
- 2019
- Cost
- £1.2m
Designed in to a tight urban site in Central London, bordered by back gardens and the underground, The Centre for Creative Learning at Francis Holland School replaces a barren courtyard with a lush roof garden atop a modest library. This space not only connects various parts of the school but has become a much-loved destination for both students and staff.
Driven by the school’s vision to provide top-tier wellbeing and creative facilities, the new building is part of a wider masterplan to optimise every corner of the 140-year-old school. The design addresses the practical challenges of circulation and space, while delivering a thoughtful and inspiring environment.
The redeveloped space provides an additional fit-for-purpose academic area, incorporating a roof garden that adds 125 sq m of greenery, boosting biodiversity with features such as a bug hotel, water feature, sloped lawn, and an edible garden for students. The library and learning hub beneath the garden are designed to maximise natural ventilation and passive cooling, minimising energy consumption.
The Centre for Creative Learning not only unlocks a previously dark corner of the school’s conservation area but also features a three-storey extension housing a performing arts space, an ICT lab, and a refurbished library designed for flexible, collaborative learning. The spaces are designed to spark students' imaginations, offering them a place to sit, read, and dream. The use of natural materials and careful detailing has resulted in a space that feels both magical and practical.
With thoughtful design choices such as rainwater harvesting, accessible pathways, and contrasting materials for visual clarity, this space demonstrates how intelligent, creative design can transform even the most challenging sites into something beautiful, functional, and inclusive.
“I am delighted to see the realisation of our new Centre for Creative Learning and Centre for Creative Enterprise. It is so exciting to see new spaces emerging within our school for our girls to develop their imagination, intellect and wellbeing.”
“It was our aim to create a space that would inspire the pupils, after they have selected their favourite book they can imagine they are Alice, sitting beneath a giant toadstool plucked from the pages of Alice in Wonderland. It was a pleasure to work with the school to create something truly functional, beautiful and creative. It really is a magical place”.
The lush, undulating garden provides a tranquil and biodiverse setting with an additional 125sqm of green space on the campus. Designing a landscape proposal which was both an exciting learning space as well as a green oasis was a challenge on the constrained site. To reduce overlooking from, and onto, surrounding residences and ensure there was plenty of headroom in the library below, the roof scape undulated. A strategy utilising insulation as terracing was formulated, to ensure the stability of trees and soft landscape build up on top of this sloped structure. Small resilient trees and dynamic planting were chosen, which were drought-resistant, low maintenance, and attractive for a variety of species to increase biodiversity and maximise impact, whilst providing colour all year round. Classrooms and neighbouring residences now benefit from a green outlook, where before there was concrete.
The garden provides a retreat for pupils to relax and read in, either sitting by the fountain, picking herbs for the kitchen, lying on the grass or taking some quiet time under the pergola, enhanced by the scent of lavender and the sounds of trickling water – an inspiring oasis within the city that can be enjoyed by all!
The Centre for Creative Learning (CCL) is located on a previously underutilised compact brownfield site. The partly subterranean site is naturally sheltered, facing inward to a courtyard created by teaching buildings, creating the ideal location for a super insulated and protected learning hub. The aim for the project was to utilise its key position and user focused brief to create a simple and robust sustainability strategy.
The CCL was designed in accordance with BB101, making special emphasis on meeting the overheating criteria, to ensure internal conditions are kept to the most satisfactory standards of comfort for learning, particularly over the summer months. The building focused on a fabric first approach. The energy strategy followed the energy hierarchy ‘Lean’, ‘Clean’, ‘Green’, prioritising passive design measures to reduce energy demand as far as possible, before introducing low energy systems and zero carbon technologies.
The space is passively cooled and naturally ventilated and users are able to manage their own conditions. Building services were selected to deliver energy to the occupied space as efficiently as possible, generating a 50% CO2 reduction over Part L 2013 Target Emission Rate. Only heating and hot water is provided via an Air Source Heat Pump. PV panels were installed on the roof of the neighbouring studio extension to also provide renewable power to the CCL.
A key principle of the project was to create an exciting space using simple, natural materials. In addition to being FSC accredited, the timber ceiling is manufactured using standard sized elements as well computer software to ensure that waste materials was minimised. It was essential that other specified materials were also manufactured with renewable energy, water stewardship, material reutilization, social fairness and recyclability in mind.
The new Library, ‘The Centre for Creative Learning’, unlocks an overshadowed corner of the school’s unique conservation area setting. The partly subterranean space is nestled against the District Line as well as a number of terraced residences, generating eight Party Wall notices and lengthy party structure negotiations with London Underground.
During construction, access to the site was limited through a covered alley 3.5m wide, accessed via a quiet residential Belgravia street. Well organised construction logistics and layout was of high importance as the school remained live throughout construction.
Design elements were prioritised and the associated risks were costed ensuring the school protected a contingency fund for high risk items associated with the tight constraints and difficult access the site presented. Effectively costing the risk register ensured the project progressed, resulting in final handover in July 2019.
The £1.2m construction cost was half funded through fundraising events and opportunities for donor recognition within the new garden.
BDP provided acoustic design support throughout RIBA stages 3 to 5, including planning, for the Francis Holland School project.
Establishing acoustic design criteria in line with good practice design standards and guidance. Careful balancing between natural and mechanical ventilation was established during the design and controlled with appropriate noise mitigation measures.
Acoustic finishes were carefully integrated into the interior design strategy to promote suitable room acoustics, along with consideration of acoustic separation, to provide an inclusive learning environment. The acoustic timber slatted ceiling radiates out from each roof light designed to excite the pupils’ imagination.
The Centre for Creativity and Learning consists of a sloping concrete shell roof structure to support the newly landscaped external space, supported by a combination of steel columns and concrete walls. These are founded on cantilevering ground beams over piles, overlaid by a suspended concrete slab. All ground beams, slabs, columns and piles adjacent to the London Underground Ltd tunnel are isolated to avoid applying new loads to the existing concrete and masonry walls- this has typically been achieved using slip membranes, pile sheathing and by increasing the distance from pile to tunnel.
The roof slab is detailed to appear resting on a full height, faceted, glazed façade system, and deflection was carefully controlled to enable this. RC walls to the back of the pavilion were designed jointly to support the roof, laterally retain earth and provide overall stability to the building.
The three-storey studio extension structure was optimised to provide sufficient stiffness for a gymnasium at 1st floor and a heavyweight double-storey façade, whilst spanning playground the below with minimal supports concrete slab.
Across the site works, new services have been carefully co-ordinated around the already congested existing scenario, avoiding discoverables, existing building footings on all sides as well as the near-surface London Underground Ltd. structure.