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Reports Residential/housing

Bakers Lane, Llantwit Major (Aug 10)

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Masterplan Reports

Llanwern Regeneration Site (Aug 10)

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Public/cultural Reports

RSPCA Llys Nini, Swansea (Aug 10)

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Education Reports

Cwm Ifor Primary School, Caerphilly (Aug 10)

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Reports Residential/housing

Castle Lane, Swansea (Aug 10)

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Case Studies Education

Cowbridge Comprehensive

Planning and Design Process

Consultation

The masterplan was informed and evolved through regular consultation and feedback sessions, initially with the school and its pupils and subsequently the local community. A sustainable scheme was designed to fit with the context of the rural landscape, contributing to the well-being of the local community through its provision of sports and cultural activities.

Brief

Much of the existing school building stock was inefficient and inflexible. Once these buildings were assessed, it was identified that the school required significant refurbishment including some of the newer buildings, which were retained on sustainability and economic grounds. These now comprise an art block, two teaching blocks including fully refurbished Information and Communication Technology (ICT) suites, the dining hall, science laboratories, study rooms and 6th form classrooms. Seventy per cent of the project comprises a new three-storey building – the heart of the school – and incorporates the main entrance.

Policy context

The final design responds to The Vale of Glamorgan Single Education Plan 2006-2008: Working Together for Children, Young People and Communities across the Vale. Three main functions: health, culture and learning, are included in the new school and are all clearly visible from the main entrance.

Public space

The school provides daily community access to the sports hall, playing fields, main performance hall, meeting rooms, catering facilities and the learning resource area. Public realm at the front of the school is designed to encourage public gathering.

Topography

The new three-storey building is set down a storey level, and responds to the natural contours of the site, maintaining the existing visual aspect of a two-storey development from Aberthin Road and protecting views over the site. . The main entrance is accessed via a bridge linking the main drop-off point with the middle of the school, so that no department is more than one floor away.

Acoustic

The layout locates the acoustically sensitive classrooms away from the elevated A48 dual carriageway, maximising capacity for natural ventilation without compromising the acoustic environment.

Construction innovation

Design and construction innovation figured strongly in the design process, with the use of a hybrid structural solution allowing a quicker start onsite, while steelwork was fabricated. Smaller column sizes, rising two instead of three storeys, flat slabs for easier and more efficient distribution of services made the sports hall wall robust enough and flat enough for five aside football. A scissor stair solution simultaneously accommodates escape from the main hall and fire refuges that allow space for a wheelchair user and carer.

Sustainability Outcomes

Local Community

The community was engaged from the outset and the completed school integrates the work of glass artist Catrin Jones, developed in collaboration with pupils, staff and the local community. In constructing the new school the contractor recorded an impressive 91% of labour drawn from South Wales.

Passive sustainable measures

The fabric of the new building was developed to ensure that conductive heat losses were 20% better than the existing requirements for Building Regulations. A number of passive sustainable measures such as rainwater harvesting for flushing toilets, natural ventilation (both cross ventilation and stack effect), and exposed concrete soffits to provide thermal mass were incorporated. Most circulation areas are well lit from roof lights which provide natural ventilation as well as daylight to the upper two floors.

Building reuse

The retention of some existing buildings was an essential part of the cost plan as well as the new masterplan. These buildings were upgraded in both internal fabric and layout; an exercise that improved both the thermal and the acoustic performance, ensuring a new educational environment better suited to 21st century learning.

Flexibility

The new building provides efficient use of internal space; flexible for future transitional changes in the curriculum. Internal walls are constructed from acoustically designed plasterboard partitions, robustly detailed for the school environment. These can be removed to create a different arrangement of smaller or larger spaces, anticipating the move toward the more focused learning environment c2020.

Ecology

Externally, the landscape design respects existing ecology, while maximising the potential for a variety of playing areas – whether for sporting, educational or recreational uses. A large portion of adjacent land was purchased under a CPO – strictly intended for sports playing fields, with no further building permitted to disturb the local landscape.

Quotes


“Everyone who visits us is struck by the calm and purposeful atmosphere and the very clear statement which the accommodation makes about the value we place on learning and on our young people. Our pupils show evident delight in the quality of the accommodation and the facilities available to them. Members of staff are thrilled to be able to offer the range and variety of learning activities which previously they could only read about. This is a building which welcomes its users, which inspires us and respects our needs, ambitions and aspirations.”

Margaret Evans, Headteacher

Related Links 

HLM 

 

 

 

Categories
Case Studies Residential / Housing

Ty Hedfan

Planning and Design Process

Site context

Ty-Hedfan, meaning ‘hovering house’ takes full advantage of the river side location. The house is a further exploration of Featherstone Young’s interest in highly site specific and contextual architecture, using local materials such as slate and stone and, by fully utilizing the topography of the site, creating a striking and unique form.

Landscape constraints

The site had two principal constraints, or opportunities – the steeply sloping topography and the no build zone which included all land within 7m of the river. Taking its cue from the traditional Welsh longhouse form, one wing of the building starts in a seemingly straightforward manner but then proceeds to cantilever over the river bank and into the trees, becoming lighter and more open as it does so.  The other wing of the building is sunk into the slope of the site, with a green roof over, and full height glazing looking out over a decked riverside lawn. Irregular shaped roof-lights over this wing, drop extra light into the area and are detailed as wooden cattle troughs in a field.

Materials

The material palette takes its cue from the local vernacular context, but they are eventually detailed in a more unusual manner. The cantilevered wing is a crisp slate-clad box with hidden guttering and faceted pitched roof which gradually transforms into a hardwood framed glass living room, hung over the river. Two screen walls in local dry stone, soften the hard geometric slate form, but become monolithic 9m high features from the riverside, having the practical benefit of preventing overlooking from higher neighbouring properties. Internally, cedar-clad walls and timber, slate and linoleum floors predominate.

Landscape design

Apart from the creation of a small riverside lawn area, the landscape design around the house aims to be as light touch as possible creating the appearance from the river of a house lost amongst its natural, wild setting. A smaller stream runs across the site and has been encouraged to form pools and wetland areas before tumbling over rocks down the steep river bank and into the main river.

Sustainability Outcomes

Materials

The main wing construction is a hybrid timber and steel frame structure, clad with traditional slate and locally sourced stone.

Orientation

Large timber framed windows on the south and southwest elevations maximise the thermal benefits from solar gain, which is then retained through high levels of insulation.

Thermal mass

Insulated thermal mass is added through the two large stone walls wrapping the main house and forming the entrance hall and interface with the lower guest wing. The guest wing’s concrete retaining walls and green sedum roof add further thermal mass.

Renewable technologies

Solar panels and an air source heat pump ensure the house is energy efficient.

 

Related links

Ty Hedfan

Architects Journal 

Featherstone Young

 

Categories
Case Studies Education Public / Cultural

Environmental Resource Classroom, Ebbw Vale

Introduction 
Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s vision for the Environmental Resource Centre (ERC) was to:
• Create a high quality educational and cultural facility that celebrates the synergy between heritage, built and natural environments;
• Promote sustainable building and demonstrate renewable energy use; and
• Use Ty Unnos, local materials and suppliers.

The Centre was the first building to be completed on The Works site in Ebbw Vale. It provides educational facilities, run by Gwent Wildlife Trust that allow local school children and members of the community to explore the heritage and ecology of the former steelworks site. The centre provides wildlife courses for people of all ages, specialist courses for school children linked to Foundation and Key Stages in the curriculum, as well as a focal point and meeting place for community environmental activities and conservation volunteering.

The ERC is located adjacent to the former steelworks’ Victorian pump house and filtration tanks, which became a haven for wildlife after closure. The pump house and ponds were used to filter water from the works, before returning it to the River Ebbw. The site and surrounding grasslands support over a hundred plant species and diverse wildlife including insects, birds and reptiles. The Classroom has been positioned to respond to the geometry, biodiversity and industrial context, creating a simple rectilinear form inspired by the form and scale of the pump house and reflecting the grid of concrete foundation remains in the shallow ponds.

Design Process
The ERC responds to the geometry of the adjacent pump house and cooling tanks, creating a simple rectilinear form with two key axes: an oak access deck to exploratory boardwalks, separating the classroom and toilet zones; and separating a storage wall from the served classroom which opens out to views across the filtration tanks and valley beyond.

Internally, prefabricated birch plywood and recycled paper pin board units create a storage wall along the rear of the classroom, containing services, modular storage and wet spaces. The classroom opens to its immediate industrial setting and wider landscaped context through sliding and folding screens. Welsh laminated oak windows open up to the valley and reed beds with integrated vent panels for occupant comfort control. The layered facade creates a play of colour and depth with red, yellow and black steel panels of wildlife super-graphics themed on four local habitats: woodland; industrial; wetland and grassland. The layout of these graphics was informed by consultation with local school children. These are concealed and/or revealed by charred vertical timber cladding around the classroom which blends with both the natural and industrial context. A galvanised steel grating extends over the WC block. An over sailing sinusoidal roof connects the two parts of the building and reinforces its horizontality, as well as providing solar shading to the glazed west elevation.

The Ty Unnos Sitka spruce construction system used in the building was developed by DRU-w and Coed Cymru as a collaborative research project to use a sustainable, low-tech and low-value method of stabilising home grown Spruce for construction. 270x210mm box beams are fabricated from readily available sizes of spruce for use in portal frames. This first prototype comprises 9no. 7.2m portal frames at 2.4m centres with birch and spruce plywood Structurally Insulated Panels (SIPs) between for floor, walls, doors and roof, giving a U-value of 0.14 W/m2K. Prefabricated off-site, the superstructure was assembled in 10 days.

Sustainability Credentials 

The classroom is a didactic demonstration of sustainability and as such was designed to achieve a 61% reduction in energy use over Building Regulations requirements.

The classroom space has an irregular use pattern with different age groups at different times of day. It has therefore been designed to be adaptable to different needs and conditions. A passive design strategy was developed from the outset. Trickle vents and low level opening panels on the western elevation with high level opening roof lights to the east encourage passive ventilation that can be manually controlled by occupants. The western glazed wall, allowing views across the valley and reed bed, and is protected from solar gain by a large roof overhang and adjustable vertical shutters.

To reduce heat loss SIPs panels provide a U-value of 0.14 W/m2K for floor, walls and roof. The building has been wrapped in an extremely durable EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) rubber membrane increasing air tightness to 3m3/hr/m2@50Pa and keeping moisture out.

To minimise electricity consumption, full height windows and roof lights provide high levels of natural daylight internally, while all external feature lighting is provided by LED strips operated by a combination of timer and photocells.

All rainwater from the roof is directed into a channel around the centre that discharges into and replenishes the ponds.

To meet the irregular use patterns, an air-water-air source heat pump with a 4.2 Coefficient of Performance (CoP) was chosen to provide space heating. This system allows the building users to quickly heat the space at any given moment responding to demand. 2sqm of solar hot water panels have been incorporated to provide for the hot water demand. A district heating system has been proposed as part of the overall site masterplan over the next five years. It is hoped that the centre will be connected to this when the adjacent primary school is built, further reducing the carbon emissions.

As part of the demonstration of and education related to sustainability, all the renewable technology has been located at the entry point to the centre rather than concealed, and all service routes have been left exposed so that connections can be visually made between components.

The centre has been built using an innovative construction system that utilises homegrown, sustainably managed Sitka spruce – Ty Unnos. The system has been designed to add value to a plentiful, but under used, Welsh timber. It is hoped that the centre will be a showcase for the system that will lead to further buildings that source local timbers, rather than importing. The timber components were fabricated off-site and simply erected by hand, reducing the requirement for heavy plant on-site.

All materials and suppliers, where possible, were sourced locally as part of the wider considerations of the regional economy and to reduce the embodied energy related to transport. The layered approach to the construction allows for the simple replacement of external finishes as they reach the end of their lifecycle. The vertical timber cladding has been charred to avoid the use of lacquers and stains. Internally, finishes were specified that were either recycled or recyclable and had a low Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) content.

Designers Evaluation
The building is designed as a simple layered construction that ‘ghosts’ into the landscape, gradually revealing its form, and the coloured panels make the project unique. Using materials that reference the steelworks context – galvanised steel, charred timber and steel grille- link the building to its past, while bold wildlife graphics link it to the present and its ecologically rich site.

The ERC was the first project to prototype an innovative construction system that has emerged from ongoing research on the use of home grown Welsh timbers in contemporary architecture. Ty Unnos – ‘a house in a night’, is a Sitka spruce construction system, developed as a low tech method to stabilise home grown, low-value Welsh spruce that is currently used for fence posts, pulping for paper and fuel. The system uses standard timber sizes produced by which is fabricated into 270 x 210mm box beams using low tech presses and standard milling machinery. Box beams form frames which are braced by pre-insulated spruce panels to form external and internal walls, floors and roofs.

Related Links
www.dru-w.co.uk/
http://www.theworksebbwvale.co.uk/newdevelopment/environcentre/?lang=en
Related Publications
Building Design: Sustainability article (link below, scan attached)
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/buildings/technical/environmental-resource-centre-ebbw-vale-wales/5002305.article
The Works project booklet:
http://wales.gov.uk/docs/theworks/policy/091123environmentalcentre.pdf