The new South London academy, which is a part of ARK, a charity which helps deliver inner-city schools through the governments academies programme, will allow staff and pupils to flourish in an inventive new environment after working in temporary classes over the past two years.

The £50m academy was designed by Zaha-Hadid, the same architect that delivered the Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic site. The new secondary school has created 116,000sq foot of space and will be home to an estimated 1200 pupils. The design is structured around a schools-within-schools principle and generates patterns of division within highly functional spaces which give each of the four smaller schools a distinct identity, both internally and externally.

The design is planned to encourage social communication and help facilitate a new planned school configuration. It will be one of the first schools to deliver an innovative learning structure that will feature longer days that will finish at 5pm to allow for sports and music.