St. Bede’s
Catholic College

St Bede’s Catholic College is a co-educational Roman Catholic voluntary aided school that has been recognised by the Government as a Beacon school. The school achieved Science Specialism in 2004 and more recently has achieved Sports Specialism status.

Vision

The school recognizes that it has a low-key presence within the local community so part of the design brief has been to provide community and extended access to its new planned sporting facilities, the intention being for these facilities to provide a civic focus for the local area.

In addition, the school wants to provide an environment for learning positive life skills and new build areas that respect and compliment the existing building and its surrounding context. A further design driver has been, to adopt, a holistic approach and integrated design to address sustainability issues and create protected external spaces that serve as oases in the hostile acoustic environment and provide a spiritual heart for the school community.

Facts & figures

The project, costing £1,571.00 per square metre (m²) consists of a mixture of refurbishment of existing blocks and construction of new areas, with external works of £136.00 per m² and services works of £188.00 per m².

The total area of the site is 14.67 hectares: the gross floor area of the development will be 8,287m2 with 4,796 m² of internal teaching space, 1,666 m² of circulation areas and 1,024 m² provided for storage.

The site

The current school buildings sit on the southeast corner of the school grounds and are arranged around three narrow open-ended external spaces. The buildings range from one to three storeys and recent additions have followed a construction pattern that provides visual continuity across the range of buildings.

Design

The construction of the new main block will enable teaching spaces to be grouped into subject areas and will house new facilities for music and drama, technology and art. This location will create a well-proportioned courtyard and the form of the building will reduce the harsh acoustic environment within this protected space; it will also place pupils in touch with the new social heart of the school (the courtyard) as they move around the building. The courtyard is a complex series of spaces which support gathering of pupils for outdoor assemblies, worship, outdoor teaching and as a social space stimulating the informal curriculum.

The existing pedestrian route to the main school entrance leads past the recently built Theatre Benedict to the left. To the right, an extension to the science facilities to incorporate a new science laboratory and preparation area will balance this promenade and proclaim the school’s first specialism of science.

The replacement Sports Hall will be placed adjacent to the existing gym and changing facilities; this combined facility can be easily opened up for community use and a separate community entrance will be provided. The existing tennis courts will be relocated to alongside a new all-weather pitch and athletics training straight. This end of the site celebrates the school’s second specialism of sport and its links with the community.

Community use

Most of the school grounds and about 15% of the school buildings are intended to be made available for community use, largely through the provision of extended 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 m² of floor area is 63kWh and predicted fossil fuel consumption per m² of floor is 108kWh. Predicted water use is 0.46 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. The company have stringent targets for employing local labour on their schools projects – this figure is currently 70%. In addition, Skanska actively encourage their supply chain to offer apprenticeship schemes to young people, and regularly attend 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.

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