The Department for Education has appointed BAM to create a ‘pathfinder’ college that develops a sustainable design for building new schools
Southam College in Warwickshire will act as the ‘pathfinder’ for new school design. It will achieve net zero carbon emissions and low energy use.
The college will also use passive design, biophilic design, climate resilience, and health and wellbeing elements.
The scheme intends to set the bar and guide how schools are built in the future.
BAM’s involvement is wide-ranging. Not only is it the contractor, but its design team is lead architect, and it has conducted extensive energy and climate modelling, interior design.
BAM will provide the school with a strategy for achieving a net zero carbon in operation position for the rest of the estate’s life.
It is also behind the structural engineering and MEP design.
‘Raising expectations’
Dave Ellis, BAM’s regional director in the Midlands, said: “The building will be net zero in operation, and we are also reducing the embodied carbon – the carbon in the actual materials used in the construction.
“We’ve evaluated the base design and produced a range of options to reduce embodied carbon.
“What we learn from Southam College will feed into the Department’s wider approach to reducing carbon in the education field.
“In addition, we’ll add additional significant extra social value by using local companies in our supply chain, and work around the school so classes and activities continue uninterrupted during the project.
“BAM has robust strategies responding to the climate emergency we face and putting the health and wellbeing of the students and teachers at the core of the new facilities.”
Ranjit Samra, head teacher of Southam College, commented: “The new school design meets the highest environmental and sustainability standards and will be a symbol of how much we value our students, staff and wider community. It will help to raise expectations that anything is possible.”
BAM has just commenced enabling works and will provide post-occupancy support to the school.
