Greenvale School and Mayow Road Housing Open

In Lewisham, Avanti Architects have successfully delivered a flagship urban renewal project to support council services and meet the needs of vulnerable communities.  The masterplan includes a new SEND school which caters for 93 pupils, extending the relationship that Avanti began with Greenvale School in 2004, and a seven-storey residential block accommodating 26 homes for families with temporary housing needs together with 6 supported living apartments for young adults with special needs, addressing acute housing needs not adequately met by the open market.

Avanti worked closely with council officers and stakeholders laying the ground for the project by initially providing strategic advice to deliver Business Cases for all the SEND schools in the borough and scoping of three council sites for residential development.  The masterplan at Mayow Road uniquely brings both these public provisions together into a single locale to ensure wider urban renewal.

The special needs secondary school caters for pupils with severe learning difficulties and autism. Avanti fulfilled the key aspiration of the client to deliver an exemplary learning environment that meets the stringent access needs of pupils and facilitates tailored programmes for older cohorts around life skills and work training.  Avanti’s site strategy delivers on this core aim through a low lying building with a compact form that ensures good connectivity and ease of movement.

With the residential block, Avanti met the client’s aspiration to provide an exemplary and inclusive form of development, with supported living forming part of the ensemble. The building achieves this objective with a quiet and grounded classical elegance. At the rear, the proximity of Mayow Park provides a sympathetic context for a quiet secluded courtyard for the supported living cluster.

Whilst the two projects have been managed for different wings of Lewisham Council, Avanti has ensured the masterplan and design approach elevates the overall ensemble, effectively conveying a sense of civic purpose and the project’s mission to deliver social provision for a diverse group of community users. Environmental sustainability and high energy performance is also achieved through compliance with the London plan and BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standards.

Read more about the individual projects below!