The old Lilian Baylis School is a set of historic school buildings laid out across a series of intersecting courtyards and plazas, which have been transformed into a gated community of apartments and houses that retain their brutalist origins.

The school opened in 1964 and was an integral part of the Ethelred Estate in Kennington, south London; it was named in honour of the theatre producer Lilian Mary Baylis, who once ran The Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells. As with much of the well-conceived public architecture of the time, it was designed by the Architects Co-Partnership for the London County Council (LCC).

It closely resembles the familiar idiom of concrete and dark brick used by Lyons Israel Ellis for a series of well-known schools constructed during the same period. What makes Lilian Baylis special, however, is its plan. Whereas the Lyons Israel Ellis schools, like earlier LCC schools, place all their accommodation in one main block, Lilian Baylis comprises a series of low, linked blocks that form a series of asymmetrical courtyards, with the principal circulation consisting of galleries at first-floor level.

Conran and Partners were invited to reinvent the old campus based on a sustainable vision, after the school was relocated locally. The ambition was to preserve and reuse the existing spaces, building on the unique identity of the expressed concrete structure, expansive brickwork and generous runs of glazing with linked blocks, while adding subtle new extensions to create 149 homes.