Samuel Cody School
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Location: Hampshire
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Sector: Education
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Division: Regional Building
Samuel Cody School is a Special Educational Needs (SEN) school for children with social, emotional and mental health needs. It opened in September 2022 and the two-storey building provides 90 places for children in years 9-11.
The project was Direct Awarded through the Department for Education Framework to Tilbury Douglas as a result of the successful delivery of Austen Academy in Basingstoke. Austen was delivered five weeks ahead of programme for the same client, Hampshire County Council (HCC).
Tilbury Douglas and our designers were involved in the scheme since RIBA Stage 2. Our whole team delivered Austen Academy so were able to provide and implement lessons learnt to Samuel Cody in terms of design and buildability.
The new school building comprises of 3027m2 of accommodation over two storeys, consisting of:
- 16 general teaching classrooms
- Six specialist and practical teaching classrooms
- Therapy and small group rooms
- Learning resource areas
- Main hall
- Dining hall and adjacent kitchen
- Staff and administration rooms
- Parent meeting room
- Pupil and staff toilets
At a glance...
£13.5m
Project value
August 2022
Completion date
Hampshire County Council
Client
External works
- Hard paved social and play areas, supplemented by a grassed play area
- A multi-use games court supplemented with outdoor gym equipment
- A sensory garden, a habitat area and further soft landscaping
- New access drive with drop-off/pick up loop with parking for taxis and minibuses, together with a footpath to the existing school campus
- Staff car park and school mini-bus parking with cycle storage for staff and pupils
Challenges and solutions
Technical problems were able to be solved through openness and transparency. For example, there was ground contamination and we gave HCC a number of solutions identifying costs and provided them with all the information they needed in order to make an informed decision. HCC trusted us on the advice we gave them. They had allowed £220k in the risk pot for this item and due to the client taking ownership of this risk and able to trust us on the information we provided they have only spent £2k.
Added value
We carried out the following tasks as part of our social value plan:
- The Central courtyard garden was overgrown and the centre path was full of weeds so we cut the grass and removed all the weeds in the path, installed a weed barrier and play bark
- The ASD (autism spectrum disorder) garden needed clearing and tidying so the kids could start using it again. The garden was overgrown with weeds and the existing vegetable patches could not be used so we removed all weeds and rotavated the vegetable patches to allow the children to start using them again
- We remarked the car parking bays, disabled bays, cut the grass at the front of the school and trimmed hedges back, and also installed a ramp for disabled access
Sustainability
The building achieved a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating, exceeding the planning requirement for a BREEAM ‘Very Good’ rating for new construction and an ‘Excellent’ rating for water consumption.
The project incorporates the following features to reduce energy consumption and mitigate the impact of climate change:
- Solar photovoltaic array at roof level
- A highly insulated building envelope includes, high performance windows, doors and rooflights
- Provision of good levels of day lighting to teaching areas to reduce the need for artificial lighting
- Energy efficient lighting and heating controls
- Natural ventilation with heat recovery to teaching spaces with a night-time cooling strategy
- Solar shading to south elevation
- Infrastructure for electric vehicle charging points
- The use of timber from sustainable sources
- Low water consumption sanitary installations
Our partners
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Structural Engineer: Calcinotto
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M&E Engineer: Rentec
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Architect: Noviun