Madrasah Al Mohammediyah - AEZ, Croydon
This project explores a holistic vision for children’s classrooms set within a Dawoodi Bohra community centre. As we observed and surveyed the site, we asked: how do we foster the collective design of these spaces that allow children to play, grow and learn? How does one make room for culture and community values within the constraints of time, space and finances?
Al Madarasah Al Mohammediyah is a language and cultural studies Sunday school for children of the Dawoodi Bohra Community in South London. The school is run and funded by Anjuman-e-Zainee, a registered charity and religious community centre in Croydon. With the community growing and the school’s cohort increasing every year, Platform 23 was approached to develop a proposal to extend and refurbish the existing spaces. Three aspects of the brief critically informed the design: the community fundraising, the short timescale and the site itself.
The community centre sits within a 60’s factory building, partially retrofitted to suit its new functions. The Sunday school classrooms were limited in character and space along with issues of ventilation, overheating, overlapping functions and a lack of amenities. The brief involved the addition of two new classrooms and amenities spaces such as break out space, library, assembly room and art studio. Adding to this, the community was likely to move premises within a couple of years which demanded a ‘meanwhile use’ approach to the design.
With a limited design programme, budget and area to work on, we designed the brief with a hierarchy of needs in mind:
Add at least one new classroom
Create a vision for the works that inspires enthusiasm and participation from members of the community
Make a cohesive layout that works without overlaps
Design refurb to inspire joy within the children
Provide amenity spaces
Involve members of the community in the works
While time and money always play a factor in every project, we really value being able to develop quality spaces where people can thrive. Our focus in this context remained on what are the more essential spaces within the school we could introduce where the ‘play-learn-grow’ approach allows children to flourish, find expression and form life long positive bonds. It was also important for these spaces to sit within the cultural practices of the Dawoodi Bohra community.
Working closely with various stakeholders and staff members, Platform 23 worked towards building a vision for a rejuvenated Madrasa for the children which was received very well by the community and helped the project surpass its initial fundraising goal by a significant margin. A number of ‘community involvement’ days were a part of the wider construction timeline and allowed community members to come together and contribute to the project in their own ways. The project is now complete and Madrasa has old but all new premises since October 2025.
