Our design is based on the concept of a village street, with departments functioning like shop fronts. The Street’s focal feature is a spectacular curved atrium, a large and expansive use of glass designed to create a sense of continuity between the natural environment outside, the Copse, and the human environment inside. An exciting glass and copper ‘skin’ envelop the street – the space is covered but light and open – a warm community space. With beautiful views, we wanted to avoid building walls or visual obstructions, instead we designed a moat as a means of ‘containing’ the site.
The site lay adjacent to a residential area and so to avoid disruption we split the seven ‘blocks’ of the campus into seven smaller projects, each with its own project manager. Phased construction and a tight programme called for close collaboration and clear communication from all design team and consultant members. As the move into the new campus drew closer, the College held a conference for interested students which included a site visit. This fuelled valuable discussions about a number of ideas raised by the students - the issues discussed were as diverse as ‘being able to find your way around this large new building’ and ‘having a clear distinction between work and social areas’.
We were committed to creating a campus that would be visually striking, welcoming, secure, sustainable and flexible for future changes – each element of equal importance. From the outset of the project we took a proactive approach to stakeholder engagement, treating staff and students as clients and collaborators. Our ambitious design was also a contemporary take on a tried and tested system – a street devoted to flexible, socially engaging work-place learning. This award-winning project was a joy to deliver and we’re thrilled that the scheme has been recognised by the CABE representative as ‘Creating the leading FE institution in the United Kingdom’.