Ashton Park School

Ashton Park School is on the western edge of Bristol, within the Ashton Court Estate – a registered Grade 1 historic landscape. It is a post-16 centre for South-west Bristol and a Sports Specialist College.

Vision

The school wanted the new development to be related to their educational philosophy – learning, respect, community and celebration. Their aim is to motivate students to achieve the highest standards in personalised learning developed through ‘future labs’ and ‘enquiring minds’.

Facts & figure

The total area of the site is 10.83 hectares: the gross floor area of the new development will be 13754.8 square metres ( m² ) with 6709.17 m² of internal teaching space, 2729.54 m² of circulation areas and 528.2 m² provided for storage.

The project, costing £1,336.00 per m², consists of a mixture of refurbishment of existing blocks and construction of new areas, with external works of £37.00 per m² and services works of £148.00 per m².

The site

The site changes in level from north to south by up to five metres and the accommodation is spread over a wide area, with limited educational links and disabled access. The design brief was to unify the specialist teaching facilities so that individual facilities were located in distinct areas and formed better links between new and existing facilities to remove the current impression of a dense maze-like campus with incoherent routes.

Consideration has also been given to the impact of the school building on its historic setting and landscape and to the long-term aspiration of English Heritage to re-establish a view from Ashton Court Mansion House to the gatehouse within the school grounds.

Design

The existing school buildings occupy the east part of the school grounds and are a mixture of single and three-storey buildings, with a recent build for community sports centre, sports hall and community facilities on the northern edge of the site. The main administration block, school hall, library, design technology block, humanities, the sixth form centre and sports hall are all being retained.

The construction of a new three-storey ‘link’ building will enable teaching spaces to be grouped into subject areas and will house new facilities for maths, science, drama, music and ICT. This building will have a central atrium that forms the ‘heart space’ around which teaching areas and offices are located and provides natural daylight and fresh air. The upper ground floor houses a single-storey link to the existing main reception and admin building and will form the main circulation spine.

A single-storey extension to the existing Design and Technology block will be provided to accommodate a new workshop and additional storage space.

New courtyards are being formed between the new and existing buildings to create attractive social and educational areas, while the spaces on either side of the building will provide a range of open and sheltered environments to allow use of external spaces throughout the year.

The landscaping scheme in general will be developed to consider future master-planning and the historic parkland setting, in agreement with English Heritage and the Local Planning Authority.

Community use

It is intended that most of the school grounds and about 15% of the school buildings will be made available for community use, largely through sports provision.

Low-impact design features

The following are utilised as far as is practicable within the new build and refurbished areas:

• Optimised building form and orientation to maximise solar access and daylight, with effective solar protection to avoid solar overheating and glare. High efficient compact florescent luminaires and automatic lighting controls to switch off lights where not needed.
• A high performance thermal envelope to guarantee high levels of air tightness.
• Passive/ natural ventilation where possible, exposed mass to provide passive cooling and avoid the need for air-conditioning and controlled mechanical ventilation (with recovery). Variable speed drives in air handling units to improve part load performance and high-efficiency fans.
• Heat recovery in the primary ventilation air plant and centralised heating systems, with variable speed pumps to improve part load performance.
• Separate heating zones to allow heating to be individually controlled and/or switched off when required. A careful consideration of available heating options has resulted in woodchip biomass being proposed as this technology is a renewable energy source, offers the best value for money and has the greatest potential for reducing the schools carbon emissions.
• Percussion taps on all showers and wash hand basins and low volume WC flushes.

Predicted energy consumption

The predicted annual electricity consumption per square metre of floor area is 54kWh and predicted fossil fuel consumption per m² of floor is 88kWh. Predicted water use is 0.39 cubic metres ( m3 ) per m² of floor area (based on 0.017 m3 per pupil per day).

Environmental, social and economic impacts

It is vital to have sound controls in place to manage common issues from construction, such as dust, noise, run-off, light pollution, hydrocarbon contamination and increased transport.

Skanska construction sites operate to the highest standards of environmental good practice, but each site also has strong links with its ‘host’ school and through them, the wider community, in order to ensure that any issues or concerns arising from site operations can be resolved quickly and effectively.

There are significant opportunities in construction to improve waste management and 'resource efficiency'. Deliveries of materials are organised to arrive ‘just in time’ wherever possible to minimise waste produced, and all waste materials are segregated and recycled wherever possible. As an example, the piling mats have been constructed from excavated material derived from site. Closed unit paint washout stations are used on the Bristol sites to prevent paint escaping into surface water run-off.

Skanska have a commitment to strengthening the local labour pool in areas where construction projects are ongoing, both in terms of numbers employed and providing training. The company has stringent targets for employing local labour on its schools projects – this figure is currently 70%. In addition, Skanska actively encourages its supply chain to offer apprenticeship schemes to young people, and regularly attends school careers fairs to promote the construction industry as a career choice.

Skanska have a longstanding partnership with Remploy who are the UK’s leading employer of disabled people. Remploy factories supply all the Bristol projects with fixed furniture and equipment, which means that the schools are contributing to social and economic sustainability for the region.

Link to Website - Ashton Park School