Building Design Partnership - Offices Development - London E8, The Bridge Academy

Date: 14 Jul 2005

The funding agreement for the BDP designed Bridge Academy in Hackney has been signed by the Secretary of State for Education.

The Bridge Academy, sponsored by UBS Investment Bank, is a unique 'vertical' school with a strong educational ethos providing the best possible organisational arrangement in this dense and deprived urban setting, on a brownfield site alongside the Grand Union Canal. This new independent state-maintained academy for 1,150 pupils aged 11-18yrs will specialise in music and maths, putting into practice the belief that there is a great bond between the two disciplines.

The scheme builds on BDP's successful 'schools without corridors' concept which maximises social cohesiveness and minimises opportunities for bullying, developing the idea further to provide a 'school without columns'. The social heart of the seven storey school is suspended from the outside walls providing flexibility across the floorplans to allow the school to develop and alter to meet the changing needs of education into the future.

The plan is split into three linked parts set within a multi-level landscape, providing a mixture of social and play space above and between the built elements, utilising roof spaces for outdoor performance, classrooms and play.

The school has been formed to provide strong outreach to the local community becoming a community hub as well as a hub for education.

The £27m, 10,250 sq m building is due to open to its first year intake in September 2007.

BDP is appointed by the DfES and UBS Investment Bank as architect, structural and building services engineer and landscape architect. The quantity surveyor is Davis Langdon; Harris Grant is acoustics consultant; Tribal Property Services is construction project manager and Place Group is overall project manager, running the project for the sponsor.

Model of The Bridge Academy

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