About The Client
Our Lady & St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School is a new educational facility, designed to provide a fun learning environment for the children of Poplar - a historic and mainly residential area of East London. The school was formed following a merger between Holy Family Catholic School and Our Lady Catholic Primary School.
The Brief
B&K Structures were appointed to provide a hybrid CLT, glulam and steel solution for the build. In order to allow the existing school to stay open, the building was split into four distinct construction phases. CLT’s aesthetic appeal led to exposed timber being specified in nearly all the classrooms. Although the impact of materials on the comfort and wellbeing of residents is an area where more research is required, strong anecdotal evidence, particularly from the education sector, shows the role CLT can play in creating a comfortable internal environment.
Key Challenges
The build presented a number of challenges. Because of its inner-city location, the size and regularity of deliveries had to be carefully coordinated to minimise disruption to local residents. Complex wall designs also created a challenge due to the curved geometry. The rounded shape of the structure required a resident engineer to remain onsite prior to the wall installation to ensure precision engineering. This was critical as the complexity, coupled with exacting tolerances, required precision throughout every stage of the design, drawing, manufacture and installation processes.
The Solution
Construction commenced at the start of 2014 with the existing school on the site remaining fully operational. As a result of this restriction, a rapid prefabricated solution was specified to prevent excessive disruptions. The Diocese of Westminster requested a state-of-the-art cross-laminated timber (CLT) school building to reduce the impact on teaching. CLT was selected as the core structural component because of the speed of construction that can be achieved through maximising offsite manufacturing techniques.
Phases one and four were teaching classrooms with phases two and three creating functional areas, including halls, offices, a kitchen and a communal focal point. The teaching spaces were constructed using conventional cross-laminated timber walls and floors with structural steelwork lintels to reduce the thickness of the floor and roof panels. In the more open plan areas, traditional steel frames were used with CLT floor and roof panels as well as CLT infill panels to divide the spaces.
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