Planning received for contemporary dining hall extension

Plans to extend and modernise the dining hall at one of the UK’s leading independent schools have been approved by planners.

The scheme at Yarm School in Stockton on Tees includes a two-storey extension to the existing dining hall with a striking new frontage as the existing brick exterior is replaced with a double-height curved façade of glass and large vertical metal fins. 

As well as providing improved dining and kitchen facilities, the new development will also provide two new upstairs classrooms for maths teaching.

The project is the latest investment in a decade-long reimagining of the school’s riverside campus, which includes the development of the Princess Alexandria Auditorium in 2012, a RIBA Award-winning performance venue that connects to a new academic block.

The school is set in 18-acres of stunning landscaped grounds with a number of Grade II listed buildings spread across what was once the site of a medieval friary, with a Georgian manor house standing where the former Dominican Friary once stood.

Barbora Bott said: “The design of the new dining hall is a response to the clear strategy and strong vision of the school to maintain the historic fabric of the site while integrating new facilities that are architecturally bold yet sympathetic to their surroundings.

“This much needed extension will provide a contemporary, memorable and mannerly addition to the campus that responds to the present day needs of the school in the architectural language of its time, reinforcing an exciting dialogue between old and new.”