DISCOVERY!

I have just discovered - and most of you probably already know this - so apologies - that if you double click on an image on this blog it brings it up in a seperate window and really big - so you can see the photo / drawing properly!

Nicola

Planning Meeting - 10 Nov

We met with the planners today. This was our first meeting with them and a perfect time - as we now have a preferred option but we are also not so fixed we cannot respond to anything the planners comment on.

We have received a few comments that we are now including in the design - including investigating whether we have any bats living on the site - but mainly in the existing buildings. So if anyone knows of any bat roosts - please shout!

Nicola

BREEAM Meeting - 9 Nov

We had a meeting yesterday [9th Nov] with the independant BREEAM assessor. Breeam is tool used to measure how 'sustainable' your proposals are. This is a national tool that can be used to compare a number of buildings. At present the only built and completed primary school in the UK that has achieved Breeam Excellent it St Lukes Primary School in Wolverhampton. We are lucky enough to have the same M&E engineer on our consultant team who did St Lukes [Ernest Griffiths]. There is one other school under construction that also should achieve Excellent.

In our initial assessment we scored 'Very Good' but we are now on a mission to get to 'Excellent'. This is no mean feet and will need buy in from both the school and GCC, but we are all keen to have a good go at it!!!

Will keep you posted as we progress through the project.

Nicola

Option Appraisal and Choice!

The whole consultant team presented the more developed two options to the User Group on the 4th November. Architect, QS, structural engineer, M&E engineer and landscape architect. At this stage it is vital to understand that we are still talking very broad brush principles of where things go - rather than the detail. There were some basic principles that we asked the staff / parents to decide on, with the main difference between the options being the accessibility to outside space from the classroom. We left a number of boards and models describing each scheme and asked for as much discussion to take place. We heard yesterday that the decision from the school was to go for the single-storey option.

We think this is the right way to go and very appropriate to this school and this site.

We have had a number of very detailed feedback items which we are now endeavouring to accommodate in the next iteration of the plans. We are gearing up for a Stage A/B report on Wednesday 18th Nov.

Once again we should re-iterate that the plans are in NO WAY fixed or finalised. There is much development and feedback required to fine-tune this proposal to exactly what is required from all groups.

Nicola

Parents Evening - 21/22 October 2009

This provided a fantastic opportunity to meet some of the parents of the school and let them know what our current thoughts are on the design. We made a model showing the existing building, the one-storey option and the two-storey option.

We also gave out questionnaires to let everyone know how they can contribute to the process - the more feedback we have now, the more we can take it all on board and design a school that is right for the community.

There are a number of ways you can have your say - post your comments on this blog, write into the school office or email me on nicola.du.pisanie@fcbstudios.com

We will keep doing these information sessions throughout the process and look forward to getting to know you all!

Nicola

Gloucester School Visits - 20 October 2009

Its been a really busy week - but managed to squeeze in some very important visits to three other schools in Gloucester:

• Kingsway Primary School - compelted a year ago. Good sustainability agenda, nice learning resource space as a knuckle between the communal spaces and KS2; good, wide corridors. Easy to find your way around the school
• Meadowside Primary School - completed in 2000. Visabled sustainability - using the technqiues as an educational tool - cut-away panels behind perspex, exposed pipework etc
• Coney Hill Primary School - completed about 5 years ago. really lovely classrooms all opening out onto a smaller outdoor play areas, the years were not in one line - year 1,2,3,4,5,6 - they mixed it up a bit and started partnering years 5 pupils with Year 1 etc

Very informative afternoon! Back to the office to do more work on the presentations for parents day!

Nicola

Staff Consultation - 19 October 2009

All the staff gave their free afternoon to come and play games with me!! "Design-Your-Own-School" board game! we had lots of little perspex pieces that the staff needed to arrange how they wanted the classrooms to work and then how those all fitted together to make a school.

It was great fun and i hope helpful for the staff to have an understanding of the issues that we all need to tackle in order to get the BEST building for your school we can! There were some themes that came out of it - cloaks and toilets were the most talked about issues - where they were in relation to the classroom - directly off the classroom / off the playground or off the corridor.

We then talked through the four options and took a vote! Options 2 and 5A didn't receive ONE vote! [didn't think they were that bad guys!], but the conclusion was that we were going to develop options 5B and 6 into more detail, up until the 4th November when the school needs to decide which option to go for. Its a big decision - but if you simplify it all - the most distinct difference is option 5B is one-storey and option 6 is two-storey. The latter meaning that Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 will not have direct access to outdoor play. But both are potentially GREAT schools, so we shall see!

Nicola

Options - down to 4!

So we decided to develop Options 2,5 and 6 but on exploring further we have developed an Option 5A and 5b just to confuse everyone!

Option 2 is the courtyard scheme, with each classroom having direct access to their own outdoor space as an extension of the learning environment.

Option 5A is the condensed one-storey option butu clustering the classrooms in groups of four to allow a north-south orientation

Option 5B - KS1 on the upper / entrance level looking west [road] but being so far back that we can deal with all visual, security and acoustic issues. KS2 on the eastern side. All classrooms having direct access to the outdoors

Option 6 - two-storey option. a consolidated envelope gives more external space around the building, has an intensity to the heart space. The disadvantage is getting good light and vent to the ground floor classrooms!

Nicola

Option Development

We have developed 6 quite different options for the new school.

Option 1 - linear school - very much like the existing school

Option 2 - courtyard - creating a smaller scale external space at the heart of the school

Option 3 - requires the early demolition of KS1 but gets closer to the road

Option 4 - straddles the existing building

Option 5 - condensed version - single storey

Option 6 - condensed version - two storey

There is always going to be disruption to the pupils and staff during construction, so the team have a real desire to minimise this disruption by not demolishing any of the existing building until the new one is complete and ready to move into. This means that options 3 and 4 are probably the most disruptive. Option 1 is a shiny version of what is already here!

We have decided to take option 2,5 and 6 forward - all with exciting opportunities

Nicola

Building Visits 1 October 2009

We took the team to see a few other primary schools that have been recently built. It was an exhausting day, but really good fun and really informative. We saw things we liked and things we didn't - both important to know!

A few issues came out of the day - the big thing was sustainability. St Lukes opened in April 2009 and was the first primary school to achieve 'BREEAM Excellent' - this is an independent assessment tool to establish how 'sustainable' your building is. It is REALLY really hard work to get 'Excellent', but we are all keen to try and meet this target and hopefully beat their score!!

The other interesting element was the project spaces - this is basically open-plan space adjacent to the classrooms where a number of small groups can work as well as a larger group. This kind of space gives the teachers the flexibility to teach in a wide variety of ways that suit the kind of learners in their class. The key, I think, is to have a good range of teaching / learning spaces - yes, you have the classroom, but then you also have open plan spaces where the small groups can work, closed group rooms for more focused work and then the larger groupings as well.


The three schools we saw were:

• Water Hall Primary School, Milton Keynes
• Samworth Enterprise Academy, Leicester
• St Lukes Primary School, Wolverhampton

Nicola

Pupil Consultation 1 July 2009

Andy and I spent the hottest day ever talking to all the pupils. They were all asked to think about the one thing they liked about their existing school and what the one thing they would like to have in their new school. They were all given a piece of cut card to draw both elements. The results were amazing and slowly over the day we built the most incredible 'sculpture' of wishes and desires!

It was really useful for us to understand what the children [and staff] hold dear - the field, outdoor learning and their teachers! We had a few swimming pools in for the new school, but also brilliant suggestions like a 'reading rocket'!

It was an ace day and really good way to get to know the whole school!!!

Nicola