Site Photos

Site Photos

Project Details

The planning application is for a new 2FE primary school to replace the two existing school buildings, previously known as Lynworth and Whaddon schools.

The new school will be built on the vacated Lynworth site as a 1.5FE primary school with core facilities (hall, admin etc) built for a 2FE school in order that the school could expand easily to 2FE in the future should there be demand for more school places in the area.

Extended School Facilities

Most primary schools offer some of their facilities to children, their families
and the wider community. Community involvement and engagement are at the
heart of the school’s vision so there will also be approximately 10% Extended
Services provision at the new Oakwood School to provide accommodation that
is welcoming and accessible to the whole community. A Community Art/Display
space, Internet Cafe and a Community Parent Room for meetings, discussions
and training etc are proposed within this application.

Playing Fields

It is intended that the existing playing fields on the Lynworth site will continue
to be used by Oakwood School when the Lynworth school building is empty. The
proposal for a ‘Forest School’ on the new school site is also intended to be set up
during the construction phase. As a result, there will be no loss of use of playing
field space during the building of the school and the site will be seen to be in
operation by the local community throughout the construction phase.

Design

The school will be designed using Gloucestershire’s Brief for Primary Schools
and the methodology and guidance in Building Bulletin 99 to respond well to the
educational vision and aspirations of the LA and Oakwood Primary School and
its community. The design will ensure stimulating environments are provided to
enable the aims of the Transformational Agenda to be met. The school will be
designed in such a way to provide:

BREEAM Rating and score

‘The building will achieve a Very Good BREAM rating. The team are however striving to achieve an Excellent rating with a predicted score of 71%.’

The key innovative and low-impact design features of the building

The new Oakwood school development will be designed with many passive energy efficient design features to minimise the energy used and associated carbon produced. Maximum benefit has been utilised of the suns solar energy, daylight and natural ventilation through careful design of buildings orientation and facade. Solar energy provides a natural source of heating to areas of the building through carefully controlled vertical/ horizontal solar shading where applicable. Thermal modelling of the building’s internal environment has been carried out to ensure that the internal spaces do not overheat for set periods of the year. Day lighting to internal areas has been maximised by the fenestration design including borrowed light between spaces from corridor roof lights and internally glazed screens. Due to the high levels of daylight penetrating into the building, dimmable high frequency control gear has been provided to most areas of the building to reduce artificial lighting levels through photoelectric lighting controls. Automatic lighting controls throughout the building provide absence detection to turn off artificial lighting when areas are unoccupied. A Biomass ‘Wood Pellet’ boiler has been provided as the primary heating source for the building. This system will be supplemented by the gas fired heating system when required which will also act as a standby heating system. A rainwater harvesting tank will be installed underground where recycled water will be distributed around the building to flush WC’s which will ultimately save on water consumption. A ‘Mixed Mode’ ventilation strategy has been designed for Teaching spaces which utilises natural ventilation via opening windows but is supplemented by assisted mechanical ventilation complete with high efficiency heat recovery during peak summer and winter times only. All incoming mains services will be metered as will sub distribution services around the building so that the building users can view and assess their energy usage throughout various areas of the building.


Cost Summary

• Basic Building Cost - £/m2 £1,157/m2
Building area is 2,410, so basic build cost excluding as noted above £5.08m.
• Services Costs - £/m2 £605/m2
• ExternalWorks - £/m2 £316/m2
• Gross floor area - m2 2410sqm
• Total area of site – hectares 2.66 hectare
• Function areas and their size (m2) based on the 2form entry school Basic Teaching 890 m2
- Halls 225 m2
- Learning resources 143 m2
- Administration 125 m2
- Catering 60 m2
- Toilets and personal care 117 m2
- 10% additional services
• Area of circulation (m2) 360m2
• Area of storage (m2) 202m2

Community

10% extended services, however the community will be able to use the facilities in the evening and therefore 19 % (Halls, Family room, community exhibition space, extended services room)

Energy Consupmtion

• Predicted electricity consumption - kWh/m2 27.02 kWh/m2
• Predicted fossil fuel consumption - kWh/m2 23.76 kWh/m2

• Predicted renewable energy generation - kWh/m2 48.24 kWh/m2

• Predicted water use - m3/person/year 3 m3/person/year

• 40% predicted water use to be provided by rainwater or greywater

Demolition

The demolition work has started! Once the existing building is down and the site cleared the contractor can start on the ground works for the new building.

We are trying to recycle as much of the old building as possible. The brick and concrete will be used as hardcore in the construction of the new school.

Planning

Gloucester County Council has granted us planning permission.

The demolition work started this week and the Multi Use Games Area (MUGA) is due to start on site on the 21st of June.

It is hoped that the sports facilities on the site will continue to be used by the Oakwood School and community (whilst the rest of the school is being built), keeping the site active and allowing all to see the progress of the development.

Tender Information Issued

We have had a very busy month producing detail design drawings and specifications for the Oakwood Primary School, but these were finally issued yesterday to Kier Moss to produce their cost plan.

Below is detail section showing how the school will be built and the different materials we are using.

Massing and Materials

The overall form and massing of the building was developed in conjunction with the end users, representatives from the planning authorities and from the nature ofthe spaces required in a 2FE school. In order to differentiate between the different functions of the various parts of the building, a clear strategy was developed for each of the spaces, and how they will beidentified architecturally. The building consists of two main elements; a curved portion facing onto Cotswold Road, and the rectilinear blocks on the opposite side within the centre of the site. These two elements, although complimentary, have different uses. The decision was taken to differentiate between their uses both in terms of the materials used in their construction and their architectural form.The curved portion of the building houses the common areas such as the reception and entrance, staffroom and office, the library, kitchen, hall and energy centre. Some of these spaces are also intended to be opened up to some limited use by the community in the evenings.

The nature of these spaces is therefore different to the teaching spaces contained within the blocks of accommodation at the rear. The curved building will be used by adults as well as children, and by members of the public as well as children and staff. This is in contrast to the teaching blocks, which are intended to be much more child orientated spaces. The curve is the point at which access to the school is controlled and filtered; movement beyond the secure line at the rear of this curvedbuilding is strictly by invitation only.

This front portion of the building, although generally one storey in height, will be of a slightly larger scale and mass than the teaching spaces to the rear. The mainexception to this will be the assembly halls, both of the halls will be a double height space. The building height has been manipulated by the use of a greater floor tofloor height and the use of a brise soleil along this entire façade to create a more visually impressive building which will have a significant presence on Cotswold Road.The shared nature of the internal spaces is also expressed through the use of higher ceilings within the building.Whilst this curve forms the public face of the school, it was considered important to allow some glimpses both into the courtyards spaces beyond and the commonspaces within it. The curve will be a solid element with a degree of transparency, with large windows being punched into the curved walls to allow views of theactivities and spaces within the building. These windows create visual interest at ground level, allowing limited views into the site and creating a direct visualconnection to the outside world.A number of different construction materials were examined for this element. Brickwork was eventually chosen as the ideal material to form the curve as it gives thebuilding a sense of permanence and solidity as well as reflecting the material of much of the surrounding housing stock. The brickwork will be heavily textured and itis envisaged that a light coloured brick will be used to contrast with the housing. The exact colour and brick type will be agreed in consultation with the local authorityplanners.As the curved façade is orientated to the south, solar shading is required to protect the internal spaces from overheating.

A brise soleil has been introduced along the southern façade and this shelters the building from excessive solar heat gain during the summer months. The brise soleilwill be constructed from a series of vertical slats following the curve of the building. The opportunity was taken to form a colonnade along the front of the buildings byextending the main roof out over the walkway and locating the brise soleil at this outer point.

The brise soleil has many functions. It shades the building, unifies the external appearance of the curved elevation, and also provides a sheltered walkway from thecar park to the main entrance. The slats will add another level of aesthetic interest as they cast shadows onto the brickwork, providing an interesting pattern of lightand shade which will change continuously though the day.The slats are likely to be formed from timber or an engineered timber although other materials such as aluminium would also be suitable. Timber is preferred for anumber of reasons; not only is it sustainable and natural, but it also creates a direct link with the name of the school. As the school will be called Oakwood Primary, itwas desirable that the construction of the building should in some way be reflected in its name.A flat roof will form the roof of the curved section, and it will be covered with an extensive sedum green roof system. Air handling units serving the hall and kitchen willbe located on this flat roof (refer to the roof plan) but they will be obscured by extending the brickwork parapet wall and solar shading upwards to hide them.The use of colour has also been carefully considered in the design of the building. Colour is very important for children and its use was considered essential to preventthe school from feeling institutional and monochromatic. Coloured glazing has been introduced along the front facade.In contrast to the curved building, the teaching blocks on the courtyard side are rectangular in shape and are intended to have a reduced scale that reinforces thechild-centric use within. The classrooms adjacent to the surrounding houses are purposefully smaller, both to relate to surrounding houses (along Coronation Roadand Fir Tree Lane) and to create a cosier, more intimate feel to the classrooms.

To distinguish between the two areas, a mono pitch roof clad in a metal standing seam system covers each of the classrooms blocks. This roof will be partially extended to form the cover over the external teaching areas. Above the central corridor whichhas a lower level flat roof, clerestory windows have been introduced at high level. These will to allow an excellent quality of daylight within the classrooms, and also to allow the classrooms to be ventilated naturally. Cool fresh air will be drawn in at low level windows along the external wall, and by the use of cross ventilation the warm stale air exhausted through the clerestory windows at high level.The external walls of the classrooms are finished in a combination of timber board cladding and glazing a polyester powder coated aluminium and timber composite window system. Each of the classrooms will have a bifold door arrangement within this glazed screen allowing the classroom to open up to the external learning areas.

Planning Drawings

Furniture Ideas

Slightly Amended Plan

Amended Plans

Please note that these plans show the full scheme, not all of these elements will be constructed at the same time.
Landscape Plan

Plan

Amended Master Plan

This amended master plan shows the full scheme as desired by Oakwood Primary School, this includeds a 2 form entry school and a child care centre. However there is presently no funding available for the childcare centre and 3 classrooms will not be built in the first phase.

Sustainability Strategy

It is important to preserve the environment in which we live in. ADP and Gloucester County Council are committed to reducing our environmental impact. The new Oakwood School will incorporate many features that will reduce its impact on the environment, such as:-

• Natural Ventilation
• Natural Day Lighting
• Rainwater Harvesting
• Biomass Boiler
• Thermal Mass

The diagram below show how these features have been introduced into the design.

At present the scheme is scoring a BREEAM excellent Rating.

Contractor Apointed

Kier Moss have been apointed as the main contractor for the oakwood primary school.