16 Hoxton Square is an Ex-London Board school designed by E.W.Pugin, son of A.W.Pugin the architect of the House of Commons, and leading exponent of the 19th Century Gothic revival in architecture. The building is listed Grade II. Although only 3-storey, with 5m storey heights it is the same height as a 5-storey building and therefore has an unusual scale. For a building of this era, the façade to Hoxton Square is uniquely flat and rectangular.

Today it houses the Hoxton Apprentice restaurant, 16 Hoxton Square providing training facilities and incubator offices (a partnership between Training for Life, The Corporation of London & Shoreditch Trust NDC), the Bob Breen Academy gym and two apartments.

Adapted between 2001 and 2004, the work focused on three areas. The first, a ground floor rear extension, which replaces the old playground and houses the gym. The rear wall adjoining the Arden Estate and roof have been treated as one continuous timber surface. A range of timber shutters in the wall and flush but operable skylights naturally ventilate the Douglas fir ply-lined interior. The second extension, similar to that in the playground, is a single-storey star-shaped structure with a glazed elevation that reflects the surrounding roofscape. This houses an apartment with a natural white plaster interior. Lastly, inside each original whitewashed brick-lined classroom, the design introduced stressed-ply timber-clad mezzanines. 

The original entrances were reconfigured to accommodate the many different organisations and individuals that share the building. A sequence of four hallways step deep into the plan, leading ultimately to the new lift. The third is a red timber panelled room overlooking a new and strangely shaped garden lined in green mirror glass that accentuates the green hue of the ferns filling the space.

16 Hoxton Square was commissioned by Capital & Provident Regeneration. The design was developed in conjunction with structural engineer Peter Dann & Partners, services engineer Hannan Associates, landscape architect Whitelaw Turkington, graphic designer Pat O’Leary and cost consultant the KHK Group. The contractor was Durkan Pudelek.