design solutions
Master planning leads to sports hall success
Sensitive design was a must for this Green Belt prep school, as architect Charles Danby of MEB Design explains
School, together with various other projects, as part of the school’s masterplan started in 2014. Master planning and strategic planning
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are common ways for school projects to begin and enable a school to take stock of what facilities it has got, prioritise its needs, and really make sure that any new projects are fully considered within the wider context of the school and other local and site factors. Therefore, at The Manor, the eventual project consisted of a four-court badminton and netball hall with new entrance concourse, offices, changing rooms and staff facilities. The brief was to prioritise school use, in a school which was about to become co- educational, but with the possibility of community use and outside lettings, so
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educationdab.co.uk
EB Design first designed the new sports hall and swimming pool building at The Manor Prep
Sport England recommendations and other guidance were to be considered. MEB Design then won the project again
through a limited architectural design competition. The sensitive site is in the Oxford Green Belt and in close proximity to several listed buildings and as such the building had to be a piece of “exemplar” design. The approach to this was to use high quality external materials – such as the facing brick and re-constituted stone detailing – but also to work on the massing, layout and orientation of the building so as to minimise its impact in the landscape. The main bulk of the sports hall is
pushed up against the A34 embankment, and the lower elements of the building step down away from this so the elevations are broken up. The stone detailing and banding give vertical and horizontal articulation, and the
asymmetrical folded hipped metal roof is set above a clerestory so that it “floats” like a separate lid over the building. Working with Kemp and Kemp (now Carter
Jonas) Planning Consultants, a successful pre-application process was completed with the local authority. Full planning was obtained in 2016 and the project was completed and handed over on 31 August 2018, after 12 months on site. Bidwells LLP were appointed as project
managers after the planning process to assist and advise the school on procurement, and a design and build route was chosen, with Benfield and Loxley (Oxford) as the successful contractor at a price of £2.3m. Their traditional values, local knowledge and choice of site personnel were all key elements in the eventual success of the project, despite the long winter and extended periods of snow that they hadto contend with! >>
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