Hello Negar, how are you doing? 

 

Yeah, good, thank you. How are you?

 

I'm very well! I wanted to talk to you about a project that's been in gestation for quite a few years – I think 13 years in the practice. And that's the Central Foundation Boys School - it's quite a complex project as well, so I wondered if you could just start by describing it in general terms?

 

Yes. It's a project that we started working on back in 2012. And I've had the pleasure of working on it for over a decade. So, it's been in our office for a very long time, and it's the transformation of their campus at Old Street roundabout. We started off by looking at a master plan for the whole site. The school's been in that location for over 150 years, and over that time, they've adopted buildings around a central courtyard quite organically. And what that means is that they've got quite an unusual stock of buildings. They have the first technical college in the UK, which was later transformed into the Shoreditch County Court; they have a tabernacle chapel on the site, and a number of other really interesting assets. But none of them are really designed to be suited for modern day education use, so our challenge was to try and organize the site, provide a coherent selection of departments, and invest in new facilities that the school desperately needed, especially around science.

 

And how has it been working there? I mean, it's sort of a stone's throw from your practice as well, pretty much, isn't it? So has that been quite handy? (laughs)

 

Absolutely. So being just around the corner has really helped us; we could nip down to the school if we needed to look at anything. It's helped us build a really strong relationship with the school and the team there, knowing that we're readily available, and also means that younger members of staff have been able to shadow the project for their part threes and get really good hands-on experience at the office.

I know from the blurb about this that one of the buildings was identified as one of the worst educational buildings in the UK. How did it get so bad? Do you know?

 

Good question. Before the project started, the school had been considering whether they could stay on that site. And through lots of back and forth with some of their internal stakeholders, there was a plan for them to move off site, I believe, to the location of the Arsenal stadium. 

 

Oh, really?

 

…And that meant that they hadn't put in any significant investment into the existing stock because they weren't sure whether they were going to stay on that site. They were also then tempted by the Building Schools for the Future – or the BSF scheme was dangled in front of them as another opportunity to transform the site, and that all fell through. And so, when it came down to it, they were left with buildings that had significant backlog maintenance issues and were in a poor state of repair. They were also in desperate need of some investment to bring those up to standard and that really propelled the project forward. It was contemplated that they were going to stay on that site. And they needed to bring all their buildings up to modern day use.

 

I see. I also read from the blurb that there are some famous alumni, including Martin Kemp, Ronnie Scott, Reggie Yates, Trevor Nelson – quite musical, isn't it, so far? And then Richard Siefert. And that last name made me think of concrete, and what you've just said about the need for repairs, etc, made me think about the current malaise affecting the school estate across the country. What are your feelings about the concrete problems across the country? And is it a case that actually you're sort of waiting for more calls from schools that need a lot more work? Is that how it's happening?

 

I guess most schools have been aware to some degree over time that their estates needed urgent review, and for others, it might be more of a surprise. Broadly, it has suffered from chronic underfunding for many years now. Just from our perspective, I think there is a huge need to rationalize existing estates and bring existing buildings back up to standard. As you said, one of the buildings is slammed under the priority school building program. They identified the 100 worst school buildings and the school had one; technically it had two, but one got removed from the listing at the last minute. So, I think we often come to sites where you can see that the buildings that are in need of desperate love and repair. And the schools just don't have the means to financially support those buildings and keep the maintenance up. So, I think overall in the sector, there's a huge need to look at estates more holistically, and in the long term, schools have their councils looking after day to day running of schools - they're obviously just recovering all the disruption of COVID. I imagine it's a very hard position to be in without some strategic thought about how those buildings are going to be funded and repaired for the long term.

 

Are you optimistic about the funding coming through for the schools sector, either from this government or the next, if there is a change around the corner?

 

I'm hopeful. I think there is a desperate need for it. I think real term spending in schools has gone down over the years. I'm hopeful that there will be, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what actually comes through and what is delivered as part of an investment program in schools.

 

Just one final question. Is there a special kind of buzz you get from working on schools projects? That is, do you see an immediate improvement and the school community taking on good design very readily – a bit quicker than maybe other sectors?

 

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is why I enjoy working in the sector so much. You're working with people that want a long-term investment in their buildings and their spaces. They're passionate about high quality learning environments. At Central Foundation Boys School, in particular, the head teacher, Mr. Brownhill, has been an advocate of design from the very start. So, working with visionary clients who want to put the best forward for their future generations is really inspiring. And we were so lucky on this project; there were so many obstacles and hurdles over the years, we wouldn't have been able to do it all the phases to the quality that we had wanted without the support and the backing of the head teacher and the whole school community. So, it is really rewarding. And then you get to see the impact it's having on the pupils. We took a group of young people down to the new subterranean sports hall for the first time and we recorded their reaction to the space – they had the disruption for many years on their site. And it was fantastic to see what their reactions were to that space, and the impact it will have to them in the long term. So yeah, it's a particularly rewarding sector to work in and something I love doing.

 

What were some of their reactions?

 

It was quite amusing, actually (laughs). You can't pre-empt a teenager's reaction! So, when a young gentleman stood in front of the three-court sports hall, which is all green, and we said, “Well, what do you think of the colour?” he said, “ah, it's okay”. So, we said: “what's your favourite colour?”. And he thought for a few minutes, and he said, “green” (laughs) The irony was completely lost on him. But it was brilliant. The pupils were really positive. They had spent lots of time getting other sporting activities at private schools. And they were really grateful for the levelling up that this new facility would offer them. And they could see the value for something like that would offer a state comprehensive school in central London. So that was particularly nice to see, and to hear their honest views on it.

 

(laughs) Yeah, great. Well, congratulations. I can hear the pride in your voice. So well done. And I'd love to see this scheme in the flesh one day. 

 

We'd love to show you!

 

Yeah, great. All right! Thanks very much! 

 

Super! Pleasure! Bye!