Walters & Cohen’s new 9,000sqm teaching building replaced a series of outdated 1960s structures at the heart of St Paul’s School, bringing together classrooms, library, dining and social spaces around the central Founder’s Court.

The new landscape plays an important role in integrating the building within the school’s disparate collection of earlier buildings, creating a coherent setting across the campus. A network of paths responds to the many desire lines generated by pupils moving between buildings, allowing circulation to feel direct and intuitive without these routes becoming visually dominant within the landscape.

A key challenge was the retention of an important vehicular access route serving the refectory, kitchens and other buildings, principally outside school break times. Rather than treating this as a conventional service road, it was incorporated into the wider landscape as a predominantly pedestrian space. The positioning and form of raised planted beds subtly define the route and constrain vehicle movement, ensuring that servicing vehicles can only progress at very low speeds while allowing pupils to use the space safely and freely at other times.

Together, planting, paths and raised gardens create a more unified landscape, strengthening connections between old and new buildings while providing an attractive and practical setting for everyday school life.