ST JOSEPHS CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL | Guildford, Surrey

SUMMARY: New Teaching and Dining Blocks

CLIENT: St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School

The St Josephs’ Catholic Primary School new teaching and dining block extensions were required to accommodate the new “4 form entry” numbers. The existing school had grown organically over the years and consisted of two main buildings circa 1960’s and 1990’s plus further more recent outbuilding to the rear of the site.

The main challenge for the project team was the careful phasing needed to allow for the safe staged demolition of the existing 1960’s building that would allow for the phased construction of the new teaching and dining blocks and ensure the school could remain safely operational throughout the whole project.

Freeman Beesley were required to bring together the historic information of the systems serving the existing buildings with the information accrued by the internal and external surveys.

The energy strategy for the extension was to build it so that it shared as many of the characteristics of the then current iSBEM / NCM "notional” building in terms of U-values, air permeability, heating and hot water and lighting systems as possible. This strategy resulted in the design “base line” "regulated” energy usage / carbon emissions for both blocks being 9% below those needed to pass Part L of the Building Regulations 2010, so that when the “unregulated” loads were added on, the amount of energy needed to be supplied by “renewable” means were kept to a reasonable level. The “renewable” energy was provided by a 61.2m², 9 kWp monocrystalline photo-voltaic array installed on the roof of the new teaching block.

The two new blocks are served by the same LTHW heating plant and had underfloor heating installed in most of the spaces. Ventilation to the classrooms is provided by a “mixed mode” strategy that includes both natural and demand controlled mechanical ventilation. The lighting was provided by low energy LED lighting and the lighting controls included occupancy and daylight sensing.

Photo Credits: Morgan Carn Partnership