A team led by Balfour Beatty, with Jestico + Whiles as architect, has won a design competition for the new Durand Academy Upper School. The project, a state secondary boarding school for 600 students, will create all through education at Durand Academy for students who begin their education on the school’s existing South London site.

The new Durand Academy Upper School will be located in the grounds of a Norman Shaw-designed house in West Sussex, previously St Cuthman’s special school. The winning design proposals – the result of a close collaboration between Balfour Beatty, Jestico + Whiles, landscape architect Fabrik and engineers Ramboll – are a series of timber-clad pavilions arranged in a parkland setting, which seek to preserve and enhance the setting of the original house.

A number of existing features on the 19 acre site will be restored and actively used within the scheme. The walled garden, for example, will be returned to cultivation and will be the site of the dining pavilion while residential boarding houses sit within an orchard.