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Architects: Platform 5 Architects, Richard Hopkinson Architects
- Area: 3000 m²
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Photographs:Alan Williams Photography
Text description provided by the architects. Phase 1
The £3 million project opens up the existing landmark 1930s building to create a new series of formal and informal education and meeting areas, which work as set of interacting horizontal and vertical layered spaces. The intervention of a suspended glazed seminar box within the central learning space, accessed by a slender oak-lined staircase, is the project’s most striking feature.
Our team have transformed the previously austere and run-down main spaces in the college to create a welcoming, inclusive and contemporary environment for students, staff and other building users. This project marks the first phase in the delivery of a strategic masterplan. The success of the project has led to a further commission to carry out the second stage of the masterplan with a £4.9M project.
Phase 2
This £4.9 million development, which marks the second phase of our work for Waltham Forest College in collaboration with Richard Hopkinson Architects, continues to upgrade routes and maximise the use of previously underused or redundant spaces.
Above the entrance lobby a new student zone offers a place for relaxation and extracurricular activities alongside a mezzanine floor dedicated to the Students Union.
On the ground floor, the large unused area beneath the main entrance steps has been refurbished to create a 70-seater lecture theatre and an innovative Market Place incorporating a butchery, a bakery, a reprographics and stationary centre and a start-up business incubator.
The 1970s Lowery Centre has been re-clad and the fashion department's workshops renovated to produce bright modern workspaces.
The scheme also includes a Young Persons Learning Centre incorporating a workshop, a life skills classroom, a light craft room and flexible teaching space. The Centre will have direct access to a landscaped courtyard.
