Heart of the Forest Community Special School
- Client
- Gloucestershire County Council
- Location
- The Forest of Dean
- Project Leaders
- Mike Court
- Value
- 3.1M
Challenge
Heart of the Forest Community school (link) specialises in the education, care and informed therapeutic delivery for children and young adults aged 2 – 19 years. Pupils attending the school have special needs described within the framework of Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD), Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD) and Complex Needs.
Quattro was initially appointed to undertake a Feasibility Study (link) to explore layout options for the expansion of the school. The successful appointment resulted in Quattro providing further Architectural Services (link) achieving planning permission to extend the existing 70 place school to 100 pupils and create a specialist Post 16 unit.
- Sector
- Education
Special Schools - Services
Gallery
Solution
Through close consultation with the school community, Quattro has skilfully reorganised the school, adding classrooms, a new hall and specialist areas whilst creating a linked but clear separate identity for the Post 16 building.
In order to achieve a sustainable low energy building, early design work was carried out with the M&E consultants to allow the environmental modelling to test and influence the building form and orientation. Sustainable Architectural practices were adopted with the design achieving high levels of insulation and an airtight structure with controlled natural ventilation throughout. Quattro specified local materials for external cladding; the energy for heating is supplied from a biomass boiler; water conserving fittings and waste management. An innovative external walling insulation material ‘hempcrete’ was trialled on the nursery block.
The building works were phased over 2 years and completed on time and to budget.
Due to our excellent relationship with the school and our highly successful Special Needs School Design, Quattro has been commissioned for other proposed projects on the Heart of the Forest site, including:
- Feasibility Study for submission to LSE for creation of separate Post 16 and Post 19 units on school site
- Feasibility Study for developing site-based community project (Forest Pulse) supporting young people with disabilities to provide youth centre and adventure playground
Without doubt the final building is simply stunning! Not only is it visually breath-taking, physically it provides a learning environment that is as near perfect as we could have hoped for!
Alderman Knight, Tewkesbury
The classrooms are bright, light, calming, and simply inspiring, the outside environment is fun, safe but exciting.... The curves and the roof lights including our superb entrance, helps make it feel welcoming and the wonderful ethos of our school that makes us special has simply been enhanced by our transformation.
Alderman Knight. Tewkesbury
Quattro have demonstrated an understanding and commitment to jointly work to satisfy the requirements of BREEAM and facilitated a design team approach to push the boundaries for a successful outcome, raising the level of attainment from 'Very Good' to achieve 'Excellent' rating on the Alderman Knight School.
Speller Metcalfe, Gloucester