Using deep retrofit to create space for learning - Victoria Turner, Director, Levitt Bernstein

At Elizabeth College in Guernsey, a building that was never meant for education purposes has been completely transformed into a modern space for teaching and learning. Perrot Court was an office building which has undergone substantial retrofit to enable significant enhancement and extension of the school’s facilities. The idea of retrofit is a highly sustainable one. By retaining most of the existing office building shell, the majority of embodied carbon typically associated with demolition and new build has been avoided. Join this session to learn about the challenges and significant benefits of repurposing a non-academic building for educational purposes.

Lessons learnt on collaborative funding and education to a retrofit 10 storey office building - Adrian Stubbs, Bond Bryan & Marcus Lloyd-Davy, Director of Estates & Capital Projects, Newham College 

Institutes of Technology (IoTs) are unique collaborations between existing further education colleges, universities, and leading employers.  Underpinned by £290 million of government investment to fund industry-standard facilities and equipment, IoTs represent an exciting new model for skills delivery.

Focused on strengthening higher technical education, each IoT delivers courses in one or more technical specialisms, providing learners with a route into STEM-based occupations such as automotive engineering, cyber security, agri-tech, aerospace, healthcare and lab science.

London City Institute of Technology (LCIoT) is a collaboration between Newham College (NC) , Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) it’s employers in industry.  Funding is via Department for Education, the Greater London Authority, London Borough of Newham, NC and QMUL. It will specialise in delivering higher technical education and apprenticeships in a range of STEM occupations, including specialisms in engineering, digital and construction to be delivered September 2022.

A project Manager was brought in to steer the process of funding, agreeing the building lease and the educational collaboration between NC and QMUL.  This task has shortened the time the project has to deliver the scheme by September 2022.  Failure is not an option and a contractor has not yet been appointed.  He will elaborate on the challenges and reflect on how it could be improved in the future.

The Architect will reflect on the challenges of retrofitting a 10 story office building into a teaching space with a quadrilateral floor plate.  How funding challenges impacted on programme and how they delivered flexible future learning spaces whilst managing the varying expectations from HE and FE end users.

Old Buildings, New Beginnings - Michael Cambden, Architect Director, BDP

The imaginative and adaptive reuse of existing buildings is creating exciting suites of classrooms, social areas, laboratories, lecture theatres and self-learning spaces in school and university estates that prove that considerate, sustainable design works. Adaptation of old buildings in education environments like the ones at Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Warwick and Wardle Academy in Rochdale should become more and more common. With a supportive and inventive education industry leading the way, the result is simple, creative and highly-sustainable end products which serves the sector on so many levels and leave us wondering…what else can be achieved with old building stock?