Bridgwater College, Health and Beauty Centre
Bridgwater College required an iconic new building to replace old classrooms and to reflect their continuing advances.
A steel-framed building with pre-cast concrete coffers was proposed by the design team. It was the attractive spaces provided by the exposed coffers and the environmental benefits that attracted the client. By exposing the coffers, which form the floor structure, their intrinsic thermal mass is made available to the internal environment with their curved shape maximising the exposed area (and therefore the thermal damping effect) and in addition, providing an interesting appearance and form for the spaces. By manufacturing the coffers, steel frame and other components off-site, a high construction quality has been maintained within tight budget and programme targets.
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Education
The education sector includes, for us, schools, colleges, universities as well as visitor centres, continuing education and science centres. The design challenge of school buildings, for the architect and engineers, is the linking of classrooms around a large multi-functional, communal space. The schools shown here have resolved these requirements in a variety of ways and it is pleasing to see the architecture of schools flourishing in the Bristol area.
Further and continuing education buildings are less constrained than schools and have different requirements. Visitor centres and hands-on science centres, for example, are often Lottery funded resulting in high profile architectural projects helping to create the necessary public appeal.
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