Modular building can meet school demand “but must look like normal buildings”

This year’s Stirling Prize went to the £41M Burntwood School but with rising numbers of children urgently needing places less bespoke methods will be necessary to create buildings to meet demand. Modular schools can fill the gap but they must “look like normal buildings,” said Education Funding Agency director, capital, Mike Green.

Jackie Whitelaw
19 October 2015

Twitter FacebookLinkedIn

Print

Topics 

Education

Modular building

The EFA currently has 24,000 schools under its control. Of these, there are approximately 10,000 CLASP (Consortium of Local Authorities Special Programme) and SCOLA (Second Consortium of Local Authorities) type school buildings which have gone well past their design life and are in need of significant attention.

In addition to this, the expectation of schools getting rebuilt under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme which was cancelled in 2010 meant that many local authorities held back on maintenance programmes for their school stock. This has heightened the necessity for major attention to the school fabric.

The EFA have been awarded £17bn by the Government to deal with these issues and improve the school stock.

Under Phase 1 of the Priority Schools Buildings Programme (PSBP1), the EFA has halved the cost of building new schools compared to BSF largely using modular techniques. The EFA is aiming for this level of success to continue with PSBP2.

“The architect needs to ensure many things, not just that the form and function of the buildings fits within its local context, vernacular and environment. But there are a variety of stakeholders who are now so instrumental in all technical aspects, that their importance cannot be ignored" - Mike Green, EFA 

“Modular school structures must look just like normal buildings,” Green said during a visit to one of his schools programme's key suppliers, Coventry based Innovaré Systems.

“But standardisation is still the key”, he said. “Standard classrooms, and even school halls, could be held in stock to be called off for a faster build.”

Green joined the EFA in 2012, after leading large multisite refit programmes for Boots Retail. He is responsible for delivering, building and maintenance programmes for the school stock in England, including project managing new builds for schools in greatest need.

Innovaré System’s manufacturing facility in Coventry has built over 50 schools for the EFA over the last year.

The key to successful modular schools, Green said, lies with who controls design.

“Design needs to be less heavily controlled from the top down and the influence of specialists, such as Innovaré, should be brought in at an earlier stage,” he said. There needs to be a more integrated approach to school design with architects, contractors and specialist contractors all collaborating from the start, he suggested.

“The architect needs to ensure many things, not just that the form and function of the buildings fits within its local context, vernacular and environment. But there are a variety of stakeholders who are now so instrumental in all technical aspects, that their importance cannot be ignored if we are to raise quality of teaching standards,” Green said.

Green was referring to the fact that quality of teaching is by far the most important factor for school success, with research suggesting a link between quality of school buildings and quality of education.

“Contributing our expertise to the design and engineering of schemes, long before contracts have been signed, has been the key to our most successful partnerships with specifiers and contractors,”  said Innovaré managing director, Pete Blunt.

“PSBP frameworks simply could not work without that commitment and involvement, and it is now equally applicable to any school or academy we contribute to.”

The EFA maintains strong working relationships with main contractors on its education schemes, working with Wates, Bowmer & Kirkland, Galiford Try, BAM and Kier.

Wates and Bowmer & Kirkland worked with Innovaré to develop a modular system for the PSBP 1. A blend of off-site technologies, including using structural insulated panels (SIPs) for energy efficient walls, has been used to create schools which meet the performance specification requirements and hit the budget.

With a flexible ‘kit of parts’ a school can have custom engineered modular components, creating a flexible system which can finely balance the acoustic, daylight, M&E needs and thermal comfort of any school building, Innovare claims.

"Schools should not be picked out of a brochure like furniture,” Blunt said. “Some providers offer this by removing both architect and main contractor from the equation. Without the contribution of those professionals however,  expertise is lost and the end-results are buildings geared for the economies of modular production processes not for the creation of exemplar learning environments.

“Instead, by working closely together we can meet the high environmental requirements and match it with the value-engineering to control costs. So everyone benefits.”

 Green said:  “Everyone wants schools that look like schools. Not modular buildings.”