Hackney School of Food
Status: Completed 2020
Client: LEAP Federation and Chefs in Schools
Location: Mandeville Primary School, Clapton, London
Main Contractor: Modernarc
Services Engineering Consultancy: Peter Deer & Associates
Structural Engineers: Structure Workshop
Graphic Design & Illustration: Jean Jullien
Landscaping Consultancy: Surman Weston, Lidia D’Agostino
Photography: Jim Stephenson, Percy Weston
Team: Percy Weston, Tom Surman, Hilton Murrell, Ana Moldavsky
The Hackney School of Food is part of a nationwide initiative to get school children to learn how to grow, cook, and eat delicious healthy food. Launched by the charity Chefs in Schools and Hackney’s LEAP Federation, the project transformed a disused caretaker’s house into a state-of-the-art teaching kitchen and productive gardens to serve local schools and community groups.
The scheme was designed to deliver maximum social value for minimum budget. Careful space planning makes it possible for a class of 30 children to be taught at once by the school’s in-house professional chef. Flexible programming of the space enables schools across the borough to benefit from cooking workshops, with around 4,000 children visiting the kitchen each year.
Robust materials and simple details ensure the spaces are both functional and beautiful. Because the entire site had to be suitable for both children and adults, custom-designed height-adjustable cooking stations were created from off-the-shelf parts – a cost-effective way of allowing all ages, bodies and abilities to cook together comfortable. Planting beds set at varying heights extend this inclusive approach into the fully accessible productive gardens.
The project’s aesthetic was designed to be inviting and playful without becoming infantile, so as to appeal to all age groups. Outside school hours and during holidays, the kitchen and gardens are used by local community groups as part of an adult food programme. The Hackney School of Food has become a local landmark, marked by a lively mural that announces its presence to the street.
The Hackney School of Food project was won by Surman Weston via an invited competition and was completed in 2020.
It has since won numerous awards including the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize (2022), the William Sutton Prize for Social Innovation (2021), and the Civic Trust Special Award for Community Impact & Engagement (2021).