Secondary school for 500 students in Clapham, South London, London County Council Architects Department. 


A war-damaged level site, well planted with mature trees, flanked by Victorian houses and fronting directly on to the west side of Clapham Common.


The school will eventually become a County college, the layout therefore is based on achieving a collegiate atmosphere with semi-enclosed courts and covered ways connecting the gymnasium and assembly hall to the main classrooms block. Teaching rooms generally are double banked in the main four-storey block with minimum horizontal circulation between two staircases. A small wing is included in the first stage for evening students and, with the future addition of two further gymnasia, a two-storey workshop block and a dining hall, the whole school will convert to a college for day and evening students. 



Construction of the main teaching block is 9in. load-bearing brick cross walls with hollow pot floors. Gymnasium and assembly hall are steel framed with load-bearing brickwork to the evening institute and kitchen wings. The storey height glazed cladding used throughout is Sapele finished with an Alkyd varnish.



The tender price was £209,546; the school will be completed in May 1960.



Architectural Design, Vol. XXIX, June 1959, p. 224




A model of the first stage of Clapham County college. Here, too, the aim has been to create an intimate college atmosphere, screening the unattractive houses on the north and south boundaries by disposing the buildings to form internal courtyards, and giving the main 4-storey block a fine view over Clapham Common. The architects in charge are, J.G.H.D. Cairns and Warren Chalk.




Architects' Journal, 1st August, 1957, p. 59