Old Schoolhouse
Building for Community
Our Schoolhouse project demonstrates how a listed building can be creatively repurposed in a sustainable way. The Category B listed building is a space that not only serves the needs of our client, Cornerstone Church, but the wider community.
For 200 years the building has served the local population and it was Cornerstone's vision to extend this to create a busy and bustling civic space that would act as a vibrant centre for community life.
We worked with Cornerstone to enhance the building's capacity, increase flexibility and restore period features that had been lost over time. The building now has a dynamic relationship with the street that fulfils our client's aspirations to reconnect the activities within the building to the surrounding context.
The main hall's subdivision limited its function and disconnected the space from the street. A new entrance releases the full potential of this historic core and establishes it as a single flexible volume.
Inhabited walls are used throughout the project to contain functional elements. The result is a building that makes best use of the space available to create a series of light filled public rooms with generous proportions that function with elegance.
The finished project reflects a careful approach to retaining what is best about an existing building while transforming it to become a valuable contemporary facility that compliments its setting.
Drawings
Project Film + Community Interviews
We have had the opportunity to take part in a film about the restoration of the Old Schoolhouse along with our clients and community users. The film gives an insight into the transformation of the space and how building users are finding the new facility. While we love to talk about our work there is no substitute to hearing from the people who use the places we make.
‘Nick and Stephen are a real pleasure to work with. They listen carefully to the client brief and respond with inventive, elegant and thoughtful solutions. They pay fantastic attention to practical details but this is coupled with great aesthetic sense. They work hard in the pursuit of excellence and communicate well at every stage of the process. I can’t recommend them highly enough.’
Neil MacMillan
Cornerstone Church
Testimonial
Fundraising Visualisations