Footprint Architects’ project was designed and built in a sensitive Greenbelt setting within New Milton and within a sensitive, constrained and live school site.

This new school facility encompasses the refurbishment and repurposing of the existing Pheonix Youth Centre building with a new two storey extension, designed to support the needs of emotionally vulnerable pupils between the ages of 7-16.

The new facility was conceived as a sympathetic development in the green belt setting, which drew inspiration in scale and materials from the existing Phoenix Centre and the surrounding density of the wooded boundaries.

The ground floor southern facade reads as an extension of the red facing brick work of the existing Phoenix Centre, while articulating the building facade to create a horizontal banding of the ground and first floor, that reflects the red and blue brick banding evident on the existing building. At the first floor level the building takes on a different materiality and aesthetic and acts as a backdrop to the fragmented views through the surrounding tree canopies.

The facility includes the provision of 9 bespoke classrooms, which consist of 6no. 6 pupil classrooms and 3no. 12 pupil classrooms. In addition another 6 specialist teaching rooms include a general art, general science, food room, learning resources centre, ICT room and Music and Drama room are incorporated into the new school.

The Staff and Administration areas of the school accommodate a general office, reception, interview room, staff room, staff work room, reprographics, sick bay, hygiene room, head teachers office, site manager, ICT technicians office and meeting room.