LIFT Youth Hub is Islington Council’s healthy living hub for young people and one of two youth facilities managed by Isledon Arts CIC on behalf of the borough. It offers a full range of youth services including social activities, mental health support, careers advice and advocacy and occupies a large Victorian school building on White Lion Street in Islington, five minutes walk from Angel tube station. The existing building was built by the School Board for London as Penton Grove School and dates from 1874. Having undertaken an initial feasibility study for a new standalone dance studio at LIFT Youth Hub whilst working at Ian Ritchie Architects in 2020, we were approached by Isledon Arts CIC in February 2022 to review their options following the project budget having been reduced to 1/4 of what it had been previously. Faced with the prospect of an off-the-shelf studio space with low ceilings and limited natural light, we suggested to the Client that we could provide a more tailored solution, better suited to dance, for the same budget. Occupying an underused corner of the site, replacing a row of disused outbuildings and 7 parking spaces, the new dance studio provides the young people of Islington with a 130m2, 30-person, professional quality dance studio.