BUILDING SCHOOLS FOR THE FUTURE
PLANNING RECEIVED FOR U
FIRST TIMBER STRUCTURE SC
heppard Robson has received tolerances and erected on site with are expressed as individual learning
S
planning for the £29m Waingels expeditious efficiency. Wood is a natural, communities, conceived as a ‘school
College in Woodley, Wokingham renewable and inexhaustible raw material within a school’: the community becomes
– incorporating a cross when sourced from a forest where every a village of teaching and learning spaces;
laminated timber structural tree felled is replaced by another one the central Open Heart space as a village
system that will reduce its carbon planted. green; and a fourth building houses the
emissions by 60%. The departure from traditional steel large shared assembly and dining hall
Developer Willmott Dixon is replacing and concrete frame systems is an spaces.
the existing college and asked Sheppard innovative move for the education built The internal areas are designed to be
Robson to showcase the latest environment in the UK. The timber open, flexible and adaptable, replacing
technologies in sustainable design. structure has less embodied carbon than the traditional long, gloomy school
Computer designed cross laminated solid steel or concrete, creates minimal waste corridors with naturally lit break out
timber panels will create the school’s load and offers a cheaper build alternative spaces, encouraging cross-curricular
bearing structure – a sophisticated ‘flat following a sharp increase in the price of interaction and learning opportunities. The
pack’ system. steel. design has been developed to promote
The timber comes from sustainably Sheppard Robson’s proposal divides the use of natural ventilation throughout,
managed forests, fabricated to high the school into three pastoral bases which natural light and exposed timber finishes
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SUSTAINABLE FM | MAY 2009
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