The school lies in the heart of Wythenshawe, Manchester’s Garden City, which embodies many of the ideas about early 20th century urban planning. The new frontage building aims to live up to this context, and one of the key objectives was to design facilities that reflect the civic status of the institution.

 The design is organised around a new central courtyard with circulation stemming from the core. This courtyard is developed as the focal point for the project, delivering the possibility of transformation to meet the school’s ambitions to be ‘agents of social integration’. The compact plan arranged around this space forms a tighter organisation, also giving better security as well as more potential as a useful outdoor space. 9353m2. Completion 2008.