We have been privileged to work with Bryanston School over a number of years, on a series of projects and specialist buildings. The brief for each of these has presented a specific set of challenges and opportunities, but collectively they sit within the strategic and coherent masterplan we developed with the school, and have contributed to the creation of a unique and richly varied campus, enhancing circulation, connectivity, community and views.

Our first project, won in competition, was the Sanger Centre for Science and Mathematics. The brief required a flexible yet contextually-sensitive design for a new building to accommodate the Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Maths departments. Three floors of classrooms are arranged around a semi-circular courtyard, and connect to multi-use spaces and hallways. The classrooms are arranged as fingers, which project from the main body of the building into the landscape behind, allowing daylight and fresh air to penetrate into their heart. A 160 m2 multi-purpose auditorium provides space for lectures and films and additional larger scale teaching space. The form of the new block forms a natural continuity with the original Norman Shaw house and the more recent technology block. Following the project’s successful completion, we were commissioned for two further projects, continuing a series of distinct external spaces that our crescent-shaped science building started.

The Tom Wheare Music School building features a 300 seat auditorium along with rehearsal, practice and teaching spaces. A series of linked buildings with sloping roofs is arranged around, and slopes towards, a central open courtyard. The main entrance to the building provides access directly off the upper plateau into a triple-height space which allows views to the wood beyond. We took advantage of the significant level change across the site, situating the modern music department in a semi-basement area with an open side onto the courtyard. Above this two wings of accommodation contain practice and teaching spaces, general teaching classrooms and administration. The main recital hall has a fan shaped plan and dramatic roof form facing back towards Coade Hall.

Bramall Hall accommodates the humanities subjects, relocated from the site of the new Music School. Built into the high ground to the north of the main courtyard, the building occupies the original site of the existing music school. Bramall Hall is a lozenge-shaped ring of accommodation over two floors, with a central atrium roofed with ETFE. It provides the loosely-programmed spaces which support’s Bryanston’s pedagogic principles of bespoke and independent learning.