42 PROJECT REPORT: EDUCATION & RESEARCH FACILITIES
The fans are placed within the chimneys, but outside of the thermal and air-tight line, shielded by the brickwork, within a large cavity. As a result, annual maintenance inspections can be done from inside. “It was our instinct, and as we did further research we realised the normal approach needed changing,” says Vowels.
Also as part of the maintenance strategy, within the laboratories, services are distributed in a high-level acoustic pelmet detail and behind insulated removable panels, providing continuous access to services runs rather than through intermittent access hatches.
Teaching spaces © Jim Stephenson © Jim Stephenson
On the ground floor are four chemistry laboratories, three of which are identical, plus three maths classrooms designed to be turned into two biology labs in future phases. The first floor houses a further three chemistry labs, the main staff prep room and workspace, and a project room which enables long-running experiments to be mounted – “they can lock the door, and leave an experiment running, it gives them greater facility to try a wider range of experiments,” says Vowels. There are two more maths classrooms on the first floor, which are however designed to be converted to biology in future phases, with services and drainage plumbed in to create future island benches for laboratories. There has been “a lot of dialogue with the school about how these spaces are going to be used in phase 2.” The chemistry laboratories are unusually large, at around 110 m2
, combining a
standard ‘chalk and talk’ teaching space with an adjacent practical ‘wet’ space. “It’s one continuous volume, facilitating a very fluid movement from theory back to practical and vice versa, allowing a lot more crossover,” says the architect. The hope is it will allow for a more interactive as well as efficient way of teaching science, where theory can be taught while technicians are setting up the technical demonstration.
© Jim Stephenson
CLT & sustainability Like the chemistry rooms, the well-insulated fabric is a hybrid, constructed from brick and block with a concrete frame offering thermal mass on the ground floor, but an exposed CLT frame on the first floor, supplied by Stora Enso. Vowels comments: “As a practice we enjoy using CLT, and we left it exposed in numerous locations as we felt the honesty that brought with it just felt appropriate
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for a teaching building – and a science building.” He adds that sustainability is the major driver for Design Engine’s love of CLT: “They’re essentially 200 mm thick timber sheets, so you’re sequestering a lot of carbon; it’s a very environmentally friendly way of constructing, which we are very keen to push.” In addition, due to the precise, offsite factory construction, the frame went together “very quickly.” Running down the centre of each
laboratory is an approximately 8 metre glulam beam spanning from the roof ridge to the chimneys, supporting the unusual roof form. In other locations, the material is used to make the openings for doorways and fenestration. In order to keep the CLT “visually consistent with the rest of the job,” says Vowels, “we worked with the engineers to keep the beams’ ‘grain’ in the same direction as everywhere else (i.e. vertical) – this created a slightly deeper beam, but was more visually appropriate.” The building’s sustainability strategy is predicated on a “very simple method of operation and a ‘use less’ mantra,” says Vowels, with high insulation levels, natural daylight levels through high performance glazing, and passive ventilation. The client's brief was to avoid a complex Building Management System; instead there are horizontal brise soleil on the south elevation (and vertical on the west), to provide the appropriate shading relative to the position of the sun.
Conclusion The project’s architect reports that Design Engine Architects has had “very good feedback” from the head of science on the building now it’s in use, “both as a piece of architecture and more importantly, what it’s like to teach in.” Having gone from rooms in 19th century buildings “which are a little tired,” the larger, hybrid labs in this building were “more of an evolution than a revolution,” but exactly what the school required to further its science education.
As a project which went on the back burner for several years, it’s a strong testimony to the relationship between architect and client that the new STEM centre stands as a design that’s faithful to its creators’ original intent. It’s also a refreshing counterpoint to historic architecture which complements but elevates its surroundings, without being ostentatious, and creates a great new circulation space for a famous school, and its scientists of the future.
ADF DECEMBER 2019
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