St Philip’s School, South Kensington

Restoration of a Victorian school building and upgrading its environmental performance for future educational use.

It's Been a Long Time Coming

St Philip's School was founded in 1934 when four boys arrived at 6 Wetherby Place for lessons in the Big School Room. Ninety years later, the school remains one of London's leading prep schools, sending boys to Eton, Harrow, City of London and Dulwich. Now they're ready to grow.

The school wishes to expand whilst lowering its intake age from 7 to 4. To make this happen, they're taking over 5 Wetherby Place, diagonally opposite their existing building. Our job is to transform this vacant Victorian property into a modern learning environment while respecting its heritage character.

Changes

The building has been empty since 2020. Previous uses as a nursery and school left it in need of significant work. Our design adds six large classrooms for Years 5 to 8, specialist music and art rooms, staff facilities, and other support spaces.

The existing layout is being rationalised to maximise every square metre. We're moving from 465m² of usable space across the two buildings to 836m². The total classroom count increases from 11 to 17.

A new lower ground floor staircase improves circulation and fire escape routes. Fire curtains at key locations allow the central staircase landings to be furnished and used as breakout spaces rather than remaining as sterile corridors.

Grown Up Spaces

St Philip's wanted classrooms that feel characterful and authentic, not generic school environments. The brief called for spaces that are warm, welcoming and distinctly St Philip's. Our proposals celebrate the building's Victorian proportions simple elegant finishes throughout. Display boards, interactive screens and high performance acoustic treatment are integrated without compromising the character and quality of the rooms.

The palette balances moments of playfulness with simple elegance. Furnishings provide colour; the architecture provides a calm backdrop for learning.

Hot and Cold

The energy study tested a variety of options for heating and ventilation. Fabric improvements, new windows and internal wall insulation, are proposed, combined with an air source heat pump and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. This approach reduces annual heating demand from 105,000 kWh to 7,600 kWh, a 93% reduction. Annual running costs drop from £6,500 to £1,900, saving £4,600 per year. Over 25 years, that's £115,000 without taking energy price rises or inflation into account.

Carbon emissions fall from 21,700 kg CO₂ to just 1,050 kg CO₂ annually, a 95% reduction.

Getting Out

The existing external door widths limit building capacity of the building. Fire escape routes have been redesigned with the protected central staircase as the primary means of escape and the existing external fire stair supporting the revised fire strategy.