Education

IT’S NEVER A QUESTION OF SIDES

Jane O’Leary, ISG’s Strategic Advisor for Education, believes that if the public and private sectors truly work together, we can deliver outstanding education facilities that support and inspire.

Poacher turned gamekeeper – I’ve heard that phrase a number of times since joining ISG from the Vale of Glamorgan Council, where I was responsible for driving the authority’s 21st Century Schools Programme over the past 12 years. The vocabulary, of course, is somewhat antiquated, but more importantly, so is the concept behind those words. I may have switched from the public to the private sector, but I see this as a completely seamless transition between complementary organisations that share the same core goals – to deliver outstanding education facilities that support and inspire our children, enhance our communities, and all without negatively impacting the environment.

The thought that you might be on one side or another of the proverbial fence is becoming increasingly redundant, as we embrace a move away from competition towards collaboration. Just look at the Alliance form of contract that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is pioneering to deliver its £1bn New Prisons Programme. Here, four of our most innovative main contractors, including ISG, are working together to prioritise a modern methods of construction (MMC)first approach, that drives innovation, maximises social value outcomes and delivers on the Government’s net-zero commitments.

In South Wales, we can rightly claim to have been ahead of the curve – especially when it comes to our strategic policy on education planning, and there is great synergy between our approach in the Vale of Glamorgan and the latest MoJ framework. Building a school is not a transactional activity, it should be rooted in ownership and full engagement across the entire construction lifecycle and beyond. Whether it’s the design and functionality of the spaces, usability, operational efficiency, its environmental credentials and social value legacy – as a council, we fully understood that the more you put in, the better the outcome for our pupils and the community at large.

This engaged approach led the Vale of Glamorgan to develop its own standard component design school. Llancarfan Primary School in Barry will open its doors this month and become the first net-zero school in Wales. The innovation doesn’t stop there – it extends to the forward-looking relationship and commitment between contractor and client. We have pioneered a five-year carbon soft landings period, where ISG will closely monitor Llancarfan Primary School and use this data to ensure the building delivers on its net-zero operational performance specification.

Analysis will directly inform and improve the council’s model school, but also enable contractor and supply chain to optimise efficiencies and innovation. As an exemplar carbon project, the school provided the perfect backdrop for a major Welsh Government announcement – made at the start of COP26. Standing outside Llancarfan Primary School, Education and Welsh Language Minister, Jeremy Miles, announced that all new school and college buildings, major refurbishments and extension projects in Wales will be required to meet netzero carbon targets from 1st January 2022.

There’s strong interest from local authorities across the UK on what’s being achieved within the Vale of Glamorgan for new-build school assets, but we’re acutely aware that there is a significant challenge with our existing education estate. When our built asset decisions are informed by carbon reduction, we cannot simply demolish and start again without considering the impact of embodied carbon.

Upgrading and revitalising our current school estate to become modern and operationally high-performing learning environments is key to our 2050 net-zero commitments. There’s groundbreaking work being done with our exemplar project for Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) on deep and ethical retrofit. This is a fabric-first approach to transform a former 1930s telephone exchange building into a world-class headquarters

building for CISL and draws many parallels with our existing education estate.

Encompassing a building that has been altered and extended over many years, this project set out to prove the efficacy of an affordable and high-performance retrofit solution delivered across a building with complex material interfaces and limited scope for external fabric enhancements. Showcasing some of the most ambitious sustainability standards that have ever been set for a built environment project, the Entopia building will achieve the Passivhaus EnerPHit and BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ standards, the WELL standard for healthy buildings, stretching carbon targets and the scheme is an exemplar for circular economy principles.

It’s exciting to think that the learnings from these two world-class schemes will not simply inform client and contractor – but will become an open-source knowledge base for everyone to benefit from. And that’s really the point – by working together in the built environment we get better buildings that enhance our lives and communities, without harming the environment. You see, we’re all on the same side!  www.isgltd.com