The new apartment is a space that will benefit hundreds of young people with special needs who are training in independent living. Students will stay at the flat during the day and overnight for different periods of time as part of their studies before hopefully moving into their own independent living space once they leave education.

The teaching apartment allows for all the pupils to learn and experience from a young age how to live and manage a home in a safe and secure teaching environment.

When we arrived the flat was empty, it was newly fitted out, but lacked colour and interest. It just wasn’t very exciting.

After creating a mood board including design ideas for the school to look at and choose from they have now fully fitted out the apartment ready for students to use from this new school term.

We wanted to make sure the furniture was practical for use in a school and we stuck to shopping with high street brands such as Ikea, John Lewis and H&M Home. We added colour with our choices of textiles and brought greenery into the space with low maintenance fake plants. The art work was sourced from The Make Bank, a social project which addresses issues associated with creative poverty.

Firms, including AO.com and Loft-interiors.com, have provided goods for the project after we approached them asking for help with his special project.

It has been a real transformation for the school and a privilege to create such a wonderful, warm and inviting space for students of the Martin Bacon Academy.