The Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton, London Borough of Lambeth, offers an opportunity to broaden not only the educational diversity of this active and historic part of London, but also to augment the built environment in a predominantly residential area. This Academy presents itself as an open, transparent and welcoming addition to the community’s local urban regeneration process. The strategic location of the site within two main residential arteries naturally lends the built form to be coherent in formation and assume a strong urban character and identity, legible to both the local and neighbouring zones.

The Academy offers a learning environment that is spatially reassuring and able to engage the students actively, creating an atmosphere for progressive teaching. To maintain the educational principle of ‘schools-within-schools’, the design generates natural patterns of division within highly functional spaces which give each of the four smaller schools a distinct identity, both internally and externally. These spaces present generous environments with maximum levels of natural light, ventilation and understated but durable textures. The communal spaces - shared by all the schools - are planned to encourage social communication with aggregation nodes that weave together the extensive accommodation schedule. 

The external shared spaces, in order to generate a setting that encourages interaction, are treated in a manner of layering to create informal social and teaching spaces at various levels based on the convergence of multiple functions.

The vision of the scheme provides an educational complex that will be equally esteemed and cherished by the pupils and community.