Put this together with a complex site, owned by the nearby Church who was renting it out to a family owned, bi-lingual French and English early years school called Raphael Nursery who was keen on enlarging and upgrading the spaces. Add the fact that the budget was tight, but then there were some works – namely the removal of the contaminated Asbestos which was present within the existing roof and other parts of the building – which could not be avoided. Furthermore, there was the collaborative approach with the owner of the building (the Church, the operators, the planning authority, the structural and fire engineers, and more) with the ambition to give back a healtier and more energy efficent building to the community.
The brief for the retrofit project was to almost double the surface of the building, initially we proposed to raise the roof then we opted to just create a mezzanine level within the existing space, replacing the roof which is only slightly higher than the original. The mezzanine level now sits armoniously within the existing building fabric, all the asbestos has been safely removed and the nursery can host 90 children plus staff with a new professional kitchen and dedicated areas for outdoor playing, sleeping, changing, staff rooms and more.
Working on education projects is always an interesting challenge for an architect as it can motivate you to think at the purpouse of the spaces and what those spaces can do to shape the generations to come. It is a bit like laying the foundations not only of a building, but also for thinking, for language, vision and attitudes and it is important to care and try to get it right.
The Raphael Nursery Clapham recognized as one of the Top 20 Nurseries in London for 2024 by Daynurseries and also thanks to the retrofit project it has received an upgrade to its Offsted ranking. We are proud of the collaborative effort to conduct a sustainable repurpose of an existing building which we hope that the local community can benefit from. Most of all, we hope that all the little ones may have found a place to learn and thrive.
