Albemarle School

This was a Design & Build contract for a new Family Learning Centre consisting of classrooms, playrooms, an office, kitchen and WC facilities to be constructed on a piece of land on the site of Albemarle School in Wandsworth, SW London.

The requirement was for us to design and build a multi-use building which would be suitable for use both as a learning facility for the adjacent Primary School and as a Community Centre. The building would be used at any time of day or evening by various local children's and young people's groups as well as their parents and carers.

The project was funded in part by Albemarle School and in part by LB Wandsworth and was to be built to a variety of exacting sustainability requirements. 

There were a number of key challenges for the successful delivery of this project. The actual site was on ‘heave’ land, which required deep piling of 15m before the concrete slab could be laid. It was also being built very close to a retaining wall at the rear of the site. The building is timber framed and was part built ‘off-site’ - when the main part of the frame was joined together, the roof was put on and the outside cladding installed.

Planning permissions had to be gained for a number of elements of the scheme, the most important of which was for access to the site which was only available through a private estate next to the school grounds. In order to be able to get cranes and lorries onto the site, Planning Permission was sought to demolish parts of the entrance to the estate, with an undertaking that we would re-build it afterwards.

There were also strict Tree Protection measures which we needed to observe, and the site was visited regularly by an Arboricultural Specialist to determine whether construction was being carried out in accordance with the approved arboricultural method statement.

Constructing a new building in such close proximity to a fully occupied and operational school posed its own problems, and naturally required the strictest implementation of Health & Safety systems and procedures to protect the school children and members of the public.

The building was designed to conform to the DfES ‘Constructional Standards’ and ‘Building Bulletins’, including No: 93 – Acoustics in Schools, No: 90 – Lighting Design for Schools and No: 101 – Ventilation for Schools. The design was also to include all measures to achieve BREEAM Excellent, and a thermal performance which exceeds Part L of the Building Regulations to a target figure of 25 percent.

We were also required to implement ‘Secure by Design’ standards, and liaised extensively with the local Police Authority on materials and methods of making the building secure both from the inside and out.

All internal fixtures and fittings had to be in accordance with the Disability Discrimination Act, and a substantial emphasis of the whole project was to make the building sustainable, both in terms of construction process and completed build. This meant that as well as being designed to use sustainable materials and using processes which reduced carbon emissions,  materials were selected so that they would be economical to run and maintain for the school in the future.

The pupils of the school were involved during the whole construction process, with a school assembly led by the Site Manager, and other activities for the children, including Site Visits and a special Children’s Day event.

Value: £0.6m
Contract Period: 26 weeks
Client: Albemarle School and London Borough of Wandsworth
Consultant: Anne Thorne Architects