Ratcliffe College is a co-educational boarding school founded in 1845, with an outstanding academic record and a reputation for excellent standards, being in the top 1% of Schools for value added in the UK.

TaskSpace was approached with the brief to upgrade the VI Form Centre’s main social area, the VI Form Café.

Complementing other works to create a new external canopy adjoining the building, the finished space needed to provide:

• Refreshed catering facilities in a welcoming environment
• A contemporary style that differentiated from the rest of the school, to give the VI Form a distinct identity

Once the brief had been detailed, there were several key design elements that set the space apart:

• Maximising capacity to allow a large number of students to use the space
• Using different heights of surfaces to lend variety
• Refinishing the catering area to modernise facilities

A popular element of the design were the booth seating configurations that allow groups of up to four students to socialise, complete with device charging facilities to allow informal study to take place.

The students were heavily involved in the design process, including selecting the colour palette for the scheme.

The work was completed over the summer of 2022 and has become an integral part of the VI Form students’ social lives at Ratcliffe College.