Cotham School

Cotham School is in a residential area north of Bristol city centre. It has a Performing Arts Specialist College and Healthy School status and is an Artsmark Gold school.

Vision

The school’s vision is to transform learning so that it becomes active, experiential and engaging and where students themselves take much greater responsibility. The school have said they want a building for future learning, not just a new building, and one that respects the existing retained buildings and surrounding conservation area.

Their aspiration is for flexible learning spaces, rich in ICT provision, new Science laboratories with facilities for collaborative learning, specialised learning spaces for Design Technology (DT), Art spaces rich in digital and multi-media technology and multi-use social spaces including a new student entrance and additional dining.

Sustainable development is at the heart of the new design and in order to address this, the following are being incorporated into the new scheme: a biomass boiler, solar panels, greywater harvesting and environment landscape enhancement. Circulation and accessibility across the site will be dramatically improved, making the school’s facilities accessible to all members of the school and wider community.

Facts & figures

The total area of the site is 3.375 hectares: the gross floor area of the new development will be 13,737 m², with 7,475 m² of internal teaching space, 1,745 m² of internal circulation areas, 996 m² of external covered circulation space and 794 m² provided for storage.

The project, costing £1,504.00 per m², consists of a mixture of refurbishment of existing blocks and construction of new areas, with external works of £77.00 per m² and services works of £153.00 per m².

The site

The current school is a conglomerate of several buildings and building types, with the original main building dating from the 1930s and having architectural merit. There are a number of level changes between the buildings and they are not all linked together, resulting in an incoherent circulation strategy with outside access only to some buildings.

The existing DT and Art/Staff blocks have reached the end of their lifespan and the current Science block is unfit for purpose, so these areas will be demolished and replaced. The main school building, Library and Languages, and Dance Hall areas will be retained with varying levels of architectural and services refurbishment. The Performing Arts department and Sports Hall are in excellent condition and will remain unchanged.

Design

The main new building will sweep across the site with a one- to three-storey construction housing Art, Science, PSHE, Humanities and Modern Foreign Languages, and it will link into the back of the existing main block. In the Art Department, double-height studios will maximise natural light and provide inspiring and spacious teaching spaces.

The new Design and Technology block will be located along Cotham Road to create a strong architectural presence and will be linked to the existing 1930s building by the main double-storey component of the new building, which is curved to extend the axis of the existing building’s Hall and Dining Wing. Accessible from the first-floor Science Suite, the roof of the DT block will incorporate a ‘brown roof’ providing a valuable microclimate for pioneer species. Both these blocks will be connected to the existing building by means of a covered external circulation spine that will simplify student movements across the site as a whole.

The existing pedestrian route to the main school entrance shares its approach with service deliveries. In order to separate pedestrian and vehicle access, a new student entrance will be located on the west side of the site, while vehicle traffic will be confined to the existing car park area. Auxiliary student entrances will be provided off Cotham Road, while the existing visitor entrance remains at the heart of the school.

The proposed landscaping layout will provide a range of new spaces suited to the social, educational and physical functions of the school and allow for the clear segregation of quieter social/ teaching activity spaces from the more active sporting and informal break-times games activity.

A series of interconnected spaces create attractive areas for both teaching and social interaction, and incorporate opportunities for improving the biodiversity and other aspects of sustainability. Improvements will be made to the existing outdoor stage and amphitheatre, and a wildlife garden will be created on the north side of the playing fields.

Community use

The majority of the school grounds (tennis courts and school field) and about 60% of the school buildings are available for community use, largely through the provision of facilities for a community Islamic school. The sports and dance halls are also used by community groups.

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 of 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 school’s carbon emissions.
• Percussion taps on all showers and wash hand basins, low-volume WC flushes and a rainwater harvesting system to serve WCs and urinals in the new buildings and the main building where possible.
• Static solar thermal hot water heating to the refurbished kitchen in the main block and solar thermal hot water to serve the new Science and Technology areas.

Predicted energy consumption

The predicted annual electricity consumption per m² of floor area is 53kWh and predicted fossil fuel consumption per m² of floor is 78kWh. Predicted water use is 0.47 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.

Significant opportunities exist 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. Skanska have stringent targets for employing local labour on our schools projects – this figure is currently 70%. In addition, the company actively encourage their 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.

Visit website Cotham School