With no funding available and increasing demand for primary school places, the design solution was a simple pragmatic approach within the dense urban context. A replacement two form entry primary school built at ground and first floor with a double height play deck at second; and 101 new apartments above to cross-subsidise the school's expansion programme. With a gestational period of some 3 years this air-rights development began in mid 2009 and grew in scale as funding diminished and greater cross-subsidy was sought. What began as a replacement school masterplan quickly became a metropolitan piece of architecture. “A perfectly genius proposal... The design for the redevelopment of Holy Trinity School is pioneering and cleverly tackles the need to provide more housing and more primary school places.” Major of London