PROJECT REPORT: EDUCATION & RESEARCH FACILITIES
The subtle brown tone of the zinc roof (supplied by VMZinc) also tied in well with other buildings on the site: “It’s particularly similar to the adjacent ‘New Block’ and ‘Museum Building,’ but is also representative generally of the tile roofs throughout this part of the estate.” The project’s evolved brief saw the building grow to be its final ‘L’-shape. It has a simple organisation of teaching spaces arranged around a generous central stair, and a further wing of teaching spaces linking to the existing school. The ‘L’ forms two sides of a new quad on the campus, which the project architect proudly says has proved an “enormously successful space.” Most ground floor teaching spaces are accessed directly off a colonnade which runs around the inner facades overlooking the quad, and reflects the pre-existing design language of the school, says Matthew: “The school’s characterised by colonnades and quads elsewhere.” The circulation leading off the quad also creates a new route to art, DT and modern foreign languages – “it’s created a lovely urban space within the centre of the school estate.”
The building is clad in a handmade brick from Haywards Heath (Michelmersh Freshfield Lane), “which tonally is a fantastic match for Charterhouse’s Bargate rubble stone,” and glass fibre reinforced concrete cladding to other facade elements references the stone quoins of the existing historic buildings.
Along the south- and west-facing colonnade, the curtain wall glazing and louvres have Siberian larch frames, “which brings warmth, softness and tactility to the facade,” adds Vowels. The designers carefully avoided overdoing the surface area when it came to glazing, in order to optimise light uniformity within for lab tasks, “We didn’t want to create too much contrast – a laboratory requires even, uniform lighting for experiments.” However, there is floor to ceiling glazing to the first floor circulation space and glazing (above 1000 mm) between it and the laboratories, borrowing light from both of the sides.
Servicing concealment The steeper volumes of the roof have practical benefits too, aiding passive ventilation – an important facet of this project – and helping bring light deep into the plan thanks to high level opening windows next to the chimneys on the north facade. The forms also provide space to
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© VMZinc
conceal the significant plant required for science labs.
“The chimneys work extremely hard,”
says Vowels, “delivering all of the service requirements to the laboratories, while contributing to the architecture of the wider estate.” He adds that far from being a wilful design indulgence, “they are absolutely crammed full of services.”
This being a well-equipped tertiary level teaching facility, each of the seven chemistry labs have two fume cupboards for controlled experiments, which require air containing various chemicals to be extracted, at around 10 metres per second, and industrial-scale services. The ducts are roughly around 300 mm in diameter, and fans are approximately 700 mm x 500 mm x 500 mm.
Due to the bulky nature of this plant (it also includes ‘wet services’ distribution for the labs – natural gas, hydrogen, oxygen, Cat 1 and Cat 5 water), and the chemicals it’s extracting, it is normally placed outside the building envelope. However, here the architects achieved something that they believe is unique in such facilities, by enclosing it all within the chimneys, benefitting both aesthetics and ongoing function, but still maintaining safety. “Normally the strategy for fume cupboard fans is to place them on the roof; if there is ever a problem, they are best placed when they are outside the building envelope,” says Vowels. “Given the context, that wasn’t going to be suitable on this project from both a maintenance and aesthetic standpoint.”
© Design Engine Architects
© Jim Stephenson
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