Mitchell Eley Gould won a shortlisted competition, held by Kingswood School to design a new extension for an existing boarding house in the school grounds. The brief was to provide 20 new bedrooms, a common room and accommodation for the assistant housemaster. The close working relationship between the client team, house master and pupils enabled the design process to flourish. The bold modern building presents the clients forward thinking ethos, creating a new home for the students. The sloping topography provided the opportunity for the lower ground floor to be almost carved below the bedrooms to create a large private social space for eating and meeting. This enabled us to substantially reduce the overall footprint of the building and retain all of the existing trees. The new building benefits from the elevated nature of the site, providing views over tree-tops to the valley of Bath below. The choice of timber in this woodland setting, used in both the horizontal and vertical format, incorporates the existing Victorian building proportions. The choice of timber needed a strong approach to detail and design to persuade the planning authority that this was an acceptable proposal within the World Heritage site. Constrained by the topography and budget, the decision was made to build a simple retaining concrete box in the ground with a timber primary structure and cladding. The school needed to occupy the building at the start of the academic year and as additional works to the existing house were agreed midway through the construction process, the collaboration between team members was essential to meet the programme. The building was ready for its’ new residents in August 2016. The response from staff and students has been hugely positive and the building has recently been awarded for its overall ‘Design Quality’ by BANES Council.