Lytle Associates (Nominated by Tolworth Girls’ School)

Lytle Associates Architects have extensive experience in school masterplans, design, planning and project management across a wide range of education sectors from nurseries, primary and secondary schools to sixth form colleges and universities, stretching back over 30 years.

We are an established team with good rapport. We enjoy building personal relationships, which in turn strengthen the quality and continuity of our service at every level. We act as retained consultants for many of our school clients for whom we provide ongoing consultancy on a ‘school architect’ or framework agreement model. Our commitment and expertise has led to considerable repeat business – over 300 separate school projects completed or in progress for more than 50 education sector clients.

Our approach

We are passionate about the importance of high quality school buildings, and the impact they can have on pupil’s learning. We understand the issues that are essential in the best school design – learning spaces that inspire and engage, while being practical, functional, well laid out and a pleasure to use, attractive to prospective pupils, parents and staff, adaptable and conducive to learning.

We are equally aware of the demands facing estates and facilities managers and the importance of providing a reliable, prompt and professional service, of delivering projects on time and within budget and of achieving a flexible, robust and easily maintained end product.

We aim to design school buildings which:

• Build on the schools’ strengths and inspire them for the future
• Create an adaptable and stimulating learning environment
• Comply with all guidelines and adopt best practice
• Deliver high quality design to serve as a benchmark for future development
• Offer good value for money
• Embody the character that makes each school unique.

Our services

• Long term school masterplans: review of the whole school estate providing a framework for future developments
• Feasibility studies, option appraisals and business case advice
• Full building design from initial brief through to working drawings, specification and contract administration during construction
• Specialized Planning consultancy: Our approach to planning is proactive, constructive and open, with a high success rate
• DDA, fire safety and planned maintenance audits
• Fundraising support: We have a strong track record in helping schools to secure funding – preparing and submitting funding bids including CIF bids, helping to identify grant sources and assisting with fundraising material
• Full project management
• Retained architect frameworks offering holistic support for all sizes of building project including ongoing maintenance and condition issues

Client focus

At Lytle Associates we consider client consultation to be an integral and continual part of the building process. Every school is unique. On previous school projects we have held consultation days where we have met with teaching staff, support staff, pupils, governors and user groups to understand needs and aspirations and generate ideas. We thrive on the excitement at enthusiasm at this stage of a project. Following from this we have worked with focus groups, held design competitions and workshops, run seminar programmes and conducted hardhat tours of sites for school pupils.

Exclusive World Class Offer

Sara Waterfield, education specialist architect with 25 years’ experience designing schools, would be pleased to offer World Class Schools a free, initial visit to discuss your school estate and the potential for building developments.

Schools will then be offered a 5% discount on professional fees for any projects taken forward.

Contact

To find out more about our approach to school design, please get in touch:

Contact: Sara Waterfield, Director

Email: swaterfield@lytle-associates.com

Telephone: 01483 301661

Web: lytle-associates.com