St Lawrence College, Kent
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St Lawrence College is a new 1,700 square metre
self-contained school which houses over 150 pupils and six
classrooms in an interlinked three and two single storey building
development, which also incorporates a covered courtyard and
specially constructed 'bubble' style roof.
The £4 million innovative, eco-friendly development is
constructed using over 2,200 square metres of aircrete Toplite
blocks from Tarmac Topblock and has a number of special features
incorporated into the overall structure of the building. The
complex design not only utilised blocks in the construction of the
walls, floors and ceilings in the main buildings, they were also
used in the construction of a special cooling tower in the centre
of the courtyard.
Explaining the building's design and use of Toplite blocks, the
architect stated "When designing such a unique structure, we
had to focus on two main areas, the first being to design a complex
that delivered all of the practical needs of a school, whilst
creating an inspirational environment for learning. The second, and
arguably the most important factor, was to design a building that
could be constructed in just 12 months, to be operational for the
intake of students in September 2006.
As with any project, balancing building design with the
practical elements of labour, timescale and most importantly
budget, are all crucial in the selection of the materials for
construction. By weighing up all of these elements, we chose to
build the school using blockwork. From a practical sense, walls and
therefore buildings could be constructed swiftly, creating an
overall building skeleton in just a few of months, therefore
leaving more time for the more complex areas of the design."
By being able to cut and shape the 100mm Toplite blocks to the
required sizes using simple hand tools, the construction team were
able to reduce the overall cost of the construction, whilst
ensuring that the tight specifications, design and functionality of
the tower was not compromised. Similarly, they were able to
use lightweight aircrete blocks in between the beams for the roof
segments of the single storey blocks - laying the sedum
roofing material directly on top of them.
The school was opened to pupils, on schedule, in time for
the new school year - in September 2006.
Project team
Architect: Brodie Plant Goddard
Design and build: Barwick Construction
Aircrete blocks supplier: Tarmac
Topblock
M&E consultants: Crofton Design