Henley Halebrown

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane

333 KINGSLAND ROAD & HACKNEY NEW PRIMARY SCHOOL

Henley Halebrown

AREA
8500 m²

YEAR
2020

MANUFACTURERS
Velfac, Wienerberger, Alpine Group, Amber Precast, Briggs & Forrester Special Projects, Carey London, Creagh Concrete, Lacovadonga, Reynaers by Grabex, Stratstone

MEP ENGINEER
Elementa

LANDSCAPE
Tyler Grange

PROJECT MANAGER
QS RLB

ACOUSTIC ENGINEER
Pace Consult

MAIN CONTRACTOR
Thornsett Structures

LEAD PROJECT ARCHITECT
Noel Cash, Henley Halebrown

ARCHTECT
Techniker

PLANTING
Jennifer Benyon Design

ARTIST
Paul Morrison

CATEGORY
Mixed Use Architecture, Elementary & Middle School, Residential

LOCATION
London, United Kingdom

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane

Located on Kingsland Road, one of Hackney’s busy arterial roads on the edge of a conservation area, Hackney New Primary School combines a community-led school with affordable homes and shops at street level.

Designed by Henley Halebrown, the project represents an exemplary approach to hybrid architecture combining different functions without losing the strengths of either the original educational or residential building typologies.

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Lorenzo Zandri
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Courtesy of Henley Halebrown

Designed around a cloistered courtyard, the school has an inner-city character. The adjacent residential tower reads as both a landmark for the development as a whole and as a central European type apartment block with its covered loggia at street level.

The buildings’ concrete coloured with red sand and red granite aggregate together with its red brickwork unify the pair, bringing together their unrelated uses while emphasising the design of the two buildings as coherent elements of urban design.

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane

SITE:

The 11-storey residential block protects the 3-storey school from noise and fumes along this major thoroughfare. Its compact plan frees up the site for the School and its generous open-air courtyard playground. This space is an important focal point for pupils and staff, engendering a collegiate spirit. It also brings natural light into the School.

THE SCHOOL:

The cloistered gallery circulation orientates and organizes the school at all levels wrapping around the central courtyard. This is covered in canopies that provide shelter and shade while effectively controlling the scale of the School and neighbouring buildings for young children

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane

Classrooms, music rooms, the main hall and administration offices all face the courtyard. They are faced with light ivory glazed bricks selected for their light-reflecting properties. These also introduce colour to the outside

Generous mezzanines, roof terraces, play spaces and gardens occur on all levels of the school promoting outdoor teaching, conversations, and exercise throughout the school day.

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane

In addition to other semi-covered spaces and deep classroom window recesses, these bring the school’s walls to life, allowing pupils to inhabit them as a liminal threshold between formal and informal worlds or indoor and outdoor spaces.

The entrance to the school creates the break between the residential tower and the school, an inviting point of arrival with its wildlife-inspired gates designed in collaboration with the artist Paul Morrison.

APARTMENT BUILDING:

The block has 68 apartments that share an orthogonal reinforced concrete central core. At the top of the tower is an open colonnade.

The plan of the building is molded – “pinched” and “twisted” – creating a solid convex curve as it turns a corner. This is critical in terms of how the architecture plays with its context, introducing movement and depth.

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
© Nick Kane

The storeys are paired, with loggias carved out of the mass of brickwork with a double-height order extending around the perimeter of the building, further animating the elevations.

There is a strong interplay between the façade and the city making its wall a threshold between the building and the city. The apartment building thus gains a civic presence that transcends its immediate function.


333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Model
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Planometric Etching


333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Section BB

333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Axonometric - Deconstructed Section


333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Plan - Ground Floor
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Plan - 1st Floor 1.500
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Plan - Typical Floor 1.500
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Plan - Tenth Floor 1.500


333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Axonometric
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Detail Section - Classroom Wing
333 Kingsland Road & Hackney New Primary School
Plan - Site

Henley Halebrown
T +44 207 0339700
Henley Halebrown
21, Perseverance Works, 38 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8DD, United Kingdom