Link Primary School

The suburbs have always been sites of enterprise and invention and in Sutton, a group of parents came together to offer an answer to their children’s educational needs by setting up Link Day Schools — a charity providing primary, secondary and sixth form schooling for pupils with learning difficulties, including autism. Having been founded in two 1930s semidetached houses, and then gradually expanding into more residential properties on the same street, the charity’s building stock was no longer meeting the needs of these high-performing schools. DSDHA was thus asked to prepare a phased strategic masterplan for the school’s development. Phase One provide a new learning centre with facilities for occupational therapy. The building is both resolutely contemporary yet in dialogue with its modest mid-century surroundings. It sensitively responds to the residential context, whilst giving a more civic and dignified character to the educational complex.