• Architecture
  • Education

Withington Girls' School, Manchester

About:

Over the years, Withington Girls’ School, one of the top schools in the country for academic achievement, has expanded organically without a clear vision for the estate. We were invited to provide a masterplan vision for the school, looking at how we could improve and expand the existing facilities within a very restricted site. We identified spaces in an external courtyard that were offering very little use to teachers or pupils, seeing these awkward nooks and crannies as an opportunity to provide additional facilities.

The external courtyard has been transformed into a new internal hub, creating a multifunctional space for the whole school. Central to this is the existing two storey octagonal arts building, which has been kept and a new roof added at first floor level to link it to the surrounding buildings. Connecting to and creating the fourth side of the hub at the rear of the site is the new junior school. This new structure infills space between the existing sports hall and sixth form centre to provide eight new classrooms, alongside a hall, IT suite, library, staff office, storage rooms and changing areas.

For more information, read our Project Story.

Project Details:

Reclaiming space within a school estate to provide new learning facilities in the heart of the campus.

Client: Withington Girls' School

Construction Value: £2.9m

Completion: 2015

Location: Manchester

Awards:

  • Education Estates Awards 2016: Innovation in Delivering Value: Winner
  • AJ Retrofit Awards 2016: Education: Finalist
  • RIBA Awards 2016: North West: Shortlisted
  • North West Regional Construction Awards 2016: Regional Project of the Year: Manchester: Finalist
  • North West Regional Construction Awards 2016: Innovation Award: Finalist
  • WAN Awards 2015, Adaptive Reuse: Longlisted

Image: David Millington