The facts
Client: Moss Construction
Location: Much Wenlock, Shropshire
Services: Architectural and engineering
design
Sector: Education
Contract Type: BSF Single Project Pathfinder
Project Value: £23m
Start/Completion: 2007-2010
The project
Located adjacent to the site for the Wenlock Olympian
Games, the forerunner of the modern Olympic Games, William Brookes
School accommodates 1000 pupils as well as a sixth form of
140.
Commissioned by Shropshire County Council, the project comprises
a new school building with an all-new 25m swimming pool, sports
hall, fitness suite and gymnasium, as well as grass and all weather
sports and athletic facilities. Cultural facilities include a
replacement for the school’s current Edge Arts Centre, dance and
drama studios, new music learning facilities and a new lecture
theatre which doubles as a small cinema.
The school is organised into four learning zones, which will
also be a base for a school ‘House’, and a school ‘heart’ which
contains dining and administration accommodation.
The form of the building incorporates a three-storey teaching
block with views over the play and sports pitches to the south,
with cascading volumes housing the arts centre, leisure centre and
swimming pool nestling into ‘Windmill Hill’, at the base of the
Wenlock Edge escarpment.
Careful design allows for convenient and secure dual use of the
arts and sports facilities. Each building volume is clad in a
differing local material: brick, local stone, timber and black
render, providing a dramatic and legible appearance to the building
for visitors. The structure itself was constructed with a
combination of reinforced concrete, steelwork, glulaminated timber
and masonry.
The buildings have also been designed to achieve a BREEAM rating
of ‘excellent’ and incorporates the innovative use of solar water
heating not only for hot water supply but also for space heating.
The existing swimming pool was re-used as a rain water attenuation
tank as part of the sustainable drainage system developed on the
site to reduce the existing off-site discharge and the risk of
downstream flooding.
Learning spaces have been designed to follow closely the
educational vision of the client, with teaching spaces arrayed
around break-out spaces in distinct learning zones.