International Women’s Day

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we’re highlighting a project that saw two of our members and a wider all-women project team come together on a design for St Augustine’s Priory school, an Independent all through girls school (3-18yrs) in Ealing.

This included Kimberley Scally, architect at Paul Murphy Architects; Fiona Ballance, architect and Director at Paul Murphy Architects; Judith Carpenter, electrical engineer at Ingine; Olivia Battrum, structural engineer at Elliott Wood and Zoe Curnow, quantity surveyor at Mesh Construction Consultancy.

The school is located on a magnificent 4.8ha south facing site which is designated as Metropolitan Open Land and the original former convent buildings are locally listed. As part of a wider masterplan prepared by PMA, the proposals create a new glazed link block arranged around which are teaching spaces and a learning resource centre with adjacent sunken garden.

The link block creates a heart to the school as well as provide accommodation to support the school expansion and access to existing facilities. Low carbon design and sustainability are central to the design, which features a hybrid steel and CLT structure, naturally ventilated classrooms, renewable energy provided by air source heat pumps solar panels. Green roofs promote biodiversity and reduce the drainage impact and the project is targeting BREEAM excellent.

As part of wider engagement for the construction sector, the team gave a Women in Construction talk at the school in September 2021 to GCSE and A Level students. It was an engaging and lively session with plenty of questions for the team. 

Over lunch, the group shared their experience of working in the built environment, the range of professions that are open and routes into the industry.

Olivia Battrum, Elliott Wood

Zoe Curnow, MESH Construction Consultancy

Fiona Ballance, Paul Murphy Architects

Judith Carpenter, INGINE

Kimberley Scally, Paul Murphy Architects