Deeds
Partners in progress Ciaran Dance describes a case-study from masterplan to completion Farringtons School is an independent co-educational school for children from Year 3 up to Sixth Form and the current School intake stands at 700 pupils. The original school building dates from 1911, but its layout and functionality has been compromised by a number of pragmatic but not ideal refurbishment projects over the years. The School asked BHM to undertake a master planning exercise to identify shortfalls in the School’s facilities and inefficiencies in the arrangement of the existing accommodation. The master plan generated design solutions to accommodate the existing pupil numbers and provide new facilities to meet the School’s educational responsibilities, whilst highlighting their aspirations to enhance certain facilities. The masterplan concluded that a number of teaching departments did not have adequate sizes or quantities of classrooms and that not all of the taught subjects were departmentalised. The most effective way of resolving this was to take a teaching department satisfying these criteria out of the main School building and to rehouse it elsewhere on campus in purpose-built facilities. This would enable the remaining departments to be rearranged and expanded into the vacated space. The removal of the largest department, Mathematics, was identified as the key. Since there was also under-provision for Science teaching facilities, rehousing Mathematics in an extended Science Block would allow a reorganisation of the rest of the main School building and enhance the facilities for two of the largest and most important teaching departments. Considerations on what form the extension would take were based on a number of specific criteria: 1. It was desirable to extend upwards rather than increasing the footprint onto grassed areas and the Maths department could be housed on the first floor; 2. There would, however, have to be some increase in the existing footprint to accommodate a new Approved Document Part M compliant passenger lift; 3. To provide inclusive access to both floors with the Maths department housed at first floor level and also safe means of escape, two stairs would be needed, which should ideally be positioned at opposite ends of the building; 4. Investigations of the existing foundations revealed it would be necessary to construct the first floor extension from lightweight materials to avoid their reinforcement through underpinning; 5. A precast planked floor construction would be both quick to install and provide instant protection to the occupied accommodation below, the required fire protection between floors, and a safe working platform for the contractor to progress the first floor works.
Before…and after.
A number of proposals were drawn up with the final design evolving out of the criteria above. The construction method was a primary driver in the final look of the building, but consideration was also given to ensuring that the palette of materials was reflective of those already found on the surrounding buildings. Respect was also paid to the site adjacent, in which it is proposed to house a new Performing Arts Centre in a later phase of the masterplan. As a result, the extension was at the southern end of the existing building, with a new first floor over the entire footprint. It would be necessary to remove the existing ‘W’ roof construction and the gable at the southern end of the building, and to cut back part of the tiled portico link to accommodate the new first floor. Although the site is free from any significant change in level, both of the existing main entrances had stepped access, which needed to be replaced by new level and ramped access thresholds. In addition to the minor demolition, there was some rerouting of the existing services running around the building and under the footprint of the new extension, partly to
Autumn 2017
CCR Vol54 no3 Autumn 2017.indd 41
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