Education estates generate vast quantities of operational data every day — from room utilisation and energy consumption to condition information and legislative compliance. In theory, this information is invaluable, helping estates teams make informed decisions, target investment and demonstrate value. Yet too often, the process of recording, maintaining, storing and reporting data becomes a burden in itself, consuming time, duplicating effort and making it harder to extract meaningful insight. Rather than supporting better estates management, data overload can add complexity to decision-making, requiring professionals to sift through large volumes of information before they can identify priorities and take action. So, how can we make the data work better for us?
In the built environment space, we’re used to communicating with clients and collaborators in a variety of formats, tailored to different audiences and communication preferences. Estates data is no exception. Data visualisation tools can translate complex and extensive datasets into accessible, intuitive formats that allow a much wider group of stakeholders to engage with the evidence. This is particularly valuable where decision-makers may not be estates professionals, but they still need to understand the implications of space utilisation, condition, carbon, cost, compliance or investment data. Clear visual outputs help shift the conversation from data interpretation to informed discussion, enabling stakeholders to see the issues, opportunities and priorities more quickly. The extract from a model produced by our partners at Place Intelligence provides a compelling example (image 1) of how building occupation data can be presented with immediate impact. By condensing thousands of hours of data collection into an easily interpreted map, it becomes easier to identify over- and under used areas on campus.
A further benefit is the ability to bring multiple datasets together into a single output. Rather than considering individual factors in isolation, visualisation tools can overlay and connect information such as building condition, functional suitability, utilisation, accessibility, energy performance, backlog maintenance and future demand. This creates a more rounded evidence base for planning and investment decisions, helping estates teams understand the relationships between different pressures and opportunities. By taking a wider range of factors into account, organisations can make more balanced decisions that reflect both immediate operational needs and longer-term strategic objectives.
Visualisation also supports a more strategic, macro-level view of the campus or estate, including how it relates to its wider setting. Mapping estate data alongside external green spaces, parking provision, pedestrian routes, public transport links, local amenities and neighbouring development can reveal how the campus functions as part of a broader environment. This wider lens helps identify trends, patterns and anomalies that may not be visible at building level alone, such as underused areas, movement constraints, pressure points, capacity gaps or opportunities for improved connectivity. In turn, this enables estates development to be planned with greater confidence, context and clarity.
Ultimately, data visualisation tools help estates teams move from data collection to meaningful insight. By simplifying how complex information is presented, combining multiple sources into a single view and showing the estate in its wider campus and environmental context, they make it easier to identify priorities, test assumptions and engage stakeholders in informed decision making. Used well, visualisation does not replace detailed analysis; instead, it provides a clear starting point for deeper investigation, helping organisations focus attention where it is most needed and develop estates strategies that are evidence-based, accessible and aligned to long-term objectives.

Learning Outcomes

1. How data visualisation shifts the conversation from interpretation & analysis to informed decision making
2. How simplifying the complexity of our data provides better insights & brings clarity
3. The benefits of taking a macro view of an estate to identify patterns and trends that are not visible at a more detailed level

 

For too long, the school landscape has often been treated as the space left over around the building: somewhere for circulation, sport, play and the practical business of getting children in and out of school. But the external environment has the potential to do far more than that. 

A school is an anchor within its community. It is not only a place of learning, but somewhere friendships are formed, families connect, teachers support children, and communities gather around a shared place. The landscape is part of that experience from the moment a child arrives at the school gate. 

In exploring why these spaces matter, I have been drawing together three different perspectives: my own as a landscape architect with around 20 years’ experience designing and delivering education environments; Hannah, a clinical psychotherapist from the University of Exeter, who brings a clinical perspective on safety, home and belonging; and Robert, a primary school headteacher, who brings the day-to-day reality of how children experience school. 

Increasingly, we understand that environments influence how safe, calm and connected people feel. For children, particularly those who may arrive at school anxious, overwhelmed or dysregulated, the landscape can provide opportunities to pause, move, retreat, socialise and reconnect before they are expected to learn. 

Hannah’s perspective is especially important here. Ideas around safety, belonging and what creates a sense of home have a direct relationship with the way we design school environments. A child’s sense of safety is not only created inside a classroom. It begins on the approach to school, at the gate, in the playground, in quieter spaces and in the transitions between them. 

Robert’s perspective brings another layer: what actually happens across the school day. Children need places to be active and social, but also places to withdraw, regulate and feel secure. The landscape therefore has to support a much broader range of behaviours than a traditional playground might suggest. 

A well-designed school landscape can provide active spaces alongside calmer ones, opportunities for outdoor learning and sensory engagement, contact with nature, spaces for informal social interaction and areas where parents and carers can build relationships and support networks. 

The latest DfE guidance and Pattern Book create an important opportunity to elevate the role of landscape. Rather than treating external space as a secondary layer applied around a completed building, landscape needs to be embedded from the earliest stages of the design process. 

The opportunity is in connecting these perspectives. Landscape architecture, clinical practice and the everyday experience of running a school can all inform better design decisions. 

Ultimately, the question is not simply whether a school landscape looks good or performs technically. It is whether it helps a child feel safe enough to explore, connected enough to belong and regulated enough to learn. 

If we begin from that point, the landscape stops being the space around the school. It becomes part of the education itself.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand how external environments influence emotional regulation and why nervous system safety underpins learning readiness in schools.
2. Recognise the role of landscape as core educational infrastructure, not surplus space, and how it can actively support wellbeing, behaviour and inclusion.
3. Reframe the playground as a park-like, civic landscape, supporting belonging, dignity and everyday moments of calm throughout the school day.

Over the past year, Wilson Mason Architects, celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026, has been working with the University of Greenwich and a multidisciplinary consultant team to refurbish and upgrade its first-floor computer laboratories, creating contemporary teaching facilities capable of adapting to future technologies and ways of learning.
The challenge is that the facilities sit within a Scheduled Monument and the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Maritime Greenwich.

Understanding the building first
Our first priority was therefore to understand the retained historic fabric, listing requirements and Scheduled Monument constraints alongside the University’s objectives.
This involved reviewing Standing Consent documentation and statutory guidance, researching the building’s history, construction and materials, and identifying areas requiring intrusive investigation.
Being well informed, without adopting a fixed position on the detailed design solution, proved invaluable in our early engagement with Historic England.
These discussions established what could be altered, what required further investigation and where intervention would not be supported. With Scheduled Monument Consent essential to the project, developing this relationship and achieving broad agreement before submitting the application was critical.

Designing flexibility into the process
The programme also presented challenges. Design and delivery span a single academic year, with completion required ahead of the new academic year starting in September 2026.
A Design and Build procurement route enabled detailed design and construction activities to overlap, while providing flexibility to respond to discoveries during strip-out.
Before tender, however, the RIBA Stage 3 design needed an exceptional level of detail to secure Scheduled Monument Consent. Throughout Stages 2 and 3, we therefore undertook carefully planned intrusive investigations and opening-up works through the Standing Consent process.
These investigations identified redundant openings, service routes and opportunities for introducing modern power and data infrastructure while minimising intervention into historic fabric.
Close liaison between the architectural and engineering teams enabled detailed information to be presented to Historic England, meaning two-week consent applications could ultimately be turned around within three days.

Preparing for what you cannot see
Not everything could be investigated while the University remained operational. The Employer’s Requirements therefore needed sufficient detail to define the parameters of the consented scheme while retaining flexibility for design development as areas were opened up.
Off-site manufacture of joinery and other elements also created valuable space within a tight programme, allowing floor and ceiling voids to be investigated while fabrication continued elsewhere.
Once on site, flexibility and communication have remained critical. Wilson Mason’s continuing role within the Construction Management Team has enabled us to act as a conduit between the contractor, consultants and Historic England as previously concealed conditions have emerged.

Communication is critical
The overriding lesson has been the importance of research, investigation and open dialogue. By understanding both the client’s requirements and the significance of the historic building, the team has been able to develop pragmatic solutions which support contemporary teaching while protecting the fabric and significance of this remarkable World Heritage Site.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand the key principles of working with historic buildings and the statutory engagement required.
2. Identify practical ways to build flexibility into Employer’s Requirements while providing sufficient detail to secure Scheduled Monument Consent.
3. Understand the importance of on-site flexibility when responding to discoveries within historic fabric.

The most successful educational environments are inclusive, adaptable and resilient over time, enabling them to respond to changing student needs, strengthen communities and maximise long-term value. The Spark at Southampton Solent University exemplifies this approach.
Completed in 2016, The Spark was the culmination of a four-year programme to define and deliver the University's vision for teaching and learning. Conceived as a transformative academic hub, it supports interdisciplinary collaboration and active, student-centred learning through openness, experimentation and shared exchange.
A key lesson from educational estate planning is that buildings designed around departmental ownership often struggle to adapt as teaching models evolve. The Spark was conceived instead as a shared academic resource, prioritising flexibility, accessibility and utilisation over fixed ownership. Removing departmental boundaries required a significant cultural shift, creating spaces that are universally accessible, highly adaptable and able to support changing patterns of learning over time.
Developed in close collaboration with stakeholders, the building responded to a campus-wide need for a clear focal point. Rather than functioning solely as a teaching facility, it was envisaged as a shared academic destination connecting students, staff and the wider community. Centrally located and providing over 10,000m² of learning, teaching, social and event space, it brings together diverse activities within a highly accessible environment that encourages collaboration across the University.
Inclusivity was embedded throughout the design. Complex level changes were resolved to create a seamless step-free environment linking new and existing facilities, while lecture theatres were positioned below entrance level to maximise accessibility. Height-adjustable furniture is integrated throughout, reinforcing equitable access for all users.
At the heart of the building, a multi-storey atrium is animated by the distinctive 'Solent Red' Pod, a sculptural curvilinear lecture and breakout space that serves as both a functional centrepiece and a symbol of the University's ambitions. Visual connections across galleries and balconies encourage interaction, while a transparent frontage strengthens its relationship with the city.
Designed for 2,600 occupants yet used by more than 10,000 students, The Spark accommodates intense daily use through carefully modelled circulation and a highly flexible spatial framework. The atrium was intentionally designed without a fixed function, enabling it to host everything from informal study and social activity to graduations, exhibitions, performances, weddings and live BBC broadcasts.
A 2026 post-occupancy evaluation demonstrates the enduring success of this vision. More than a decade after completion, The Spark continues to evolve alongside changing technologies, student expectations and patterns of use, with minimal physical intervention. By prioritising flexibility, accessibility and shared use from the outset, it has become the academic, social and cultural heart of the campus.
As universities face increasing pressure to maximise utilisation, enhance student experience and reduce the carbon impacts of refurbishment and redevelopment, the ability of a building to accommodate change may become one of the most important measures of success. The Spark demonstrates how designing for adaptability can create enduring educational, social and environmental value.

Learning Outcomes

1. Future-ready learning environments are defined by adaptability
2. Student experience is enhanced through inclusive, collaborative environments
3. Sustainability is achieved through a holistic approach and efficient use of resources

Openstudio Architects' retrofit of this 1960s Westminster school demonstrates how a structural emergency can become a catalyst for long-term sustainable design, offering valuable lessons across three key areas.

Retrofit as the sustainable default.
The discovery of dangerous RAAC panels in the roof could easily have justified demolition and rebuild. Instead, the project retains the existing concrete and brickwork structure, avoiding the substantial embodied carbon cost of new construction. This required navigating the practical realities of removing hazardous material within an occupied school while designing a new timber roof structure, wildflower biodiverse green roof, and integrated photovoltaic panels, proving that even significant structural failures can be resolved without sacrificing a retrofit-first approach.

Solving inherited thermal problems.
1960s school buildings were rarely designed with thermal comfort or energy efficiency in mind. This project tackles that legacy directly: external mineral wool insulation to single-skin brick walls, triple-glazed windows replacing failing PVC units, and a deliberate reduction of glazing on south-facing façades to prevent overheating. Together, these interventions dramatically cut operational energy demand, supported by air source heat pumps and on-site PV generation, addressing both the embodied and operational carbon that make buildings responsible for 38% of global emissions.

Designing for identity and longevity.
Technical performance alone doesn't guarantee a building's future. The design introduces durable, low-carbon fibre cement rainscreen cladding, chosen for its 50+ year lifespan and recyclability, alongside warm natural materials suited to an Early Years Foundation Stage environment. In order to control cladding costs, the distinctive 'falling leaf' design is limited to the more visible corners. This playful and fresh, light-filled identity is central to Openstudio's philosophy: buildings that are loved by their users are the ones most likely to be cherished, maintained, and preserved, breaking the cycle of demolition and rebuild that undermines genuine sustainability.

Learning Outcomes

1. Retrofit over demolition as the sustainable choice: how retaining and refurbishing a 1960s structure dramatically cuts embodied carbon, and the practical detail of achieving this while removing hazardous RAAC panels.
2. Managing thermal performance in an ageing building: balancing insulation, triple glazing and reduced south-facing glazing to solve overheating risk while improving year-round comfort.
3. Material choices that create identity and longevity: using lightweight cladding, warmth and natural materials to give an EYFS school a fresh character, so the building is one people value and maintain rather than eventually demolish.

Some buildings stand the test of time because of their architectural significance. Others endure because they continue to evolve with the people and communities who use them. The Arts Tower at the University of Sheffield is a powerful example of both.

Now celebrating 60 years as a defining feature of Sheffield’s skyline, the Grade II-listed tower demonstrates how thoughtful retrofit can give an ageing education asset a new lease of life.

Originally completed in the 1960s, the 22-storey building had become outdated and inefficient, earning the nickname ‘Faulty Tower’. Our refurbishment, completed in 2011, took a different approach: rather than replace an iconic building, we worked with the University of Sheffield, English Heritage and local stakeholders to carefully restore and remodel it for contemporary use.

The result is a flexible, accessible and future-ready learning environment, incorporating design studios, teaching spaces and professional services areas. Upgraded building services and a completely re-clad façade improved thermal performance, safety and comfort, while sensitive interventions retained the architectural character that makes the Arts Tower so distinctive.

Sustainability was central to the transformation. The project achieved a 24% reduction in net energy use and targeted BREEAM Excellent, supported by heat recovery systems, improved ventilation, low water-use fittings and recycled materials.

The Arts Tower shows that resilience is not simply about making buildings stronger or more efficient. It is about designing them to adapt, remain useful and continue contributing to the life of a university.

As education estates face growing pressure to reduce carbon, maximise existing assets and create better environments for learning, the lessons from the Arts Tower remain highly relevant: heritage and innovation can work together, and retrofit can be a catalyst for long-term value.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand how heritage-led retrofit can extend the life and usefulness of existing higher education assets.
2. Explore how sensitive design interventions can balance architectural heritage with accessibility, flexibility, safety and modern learning needs.
3. Recognise the role of retrofit in reducing energy use and supporting more sustainable, resilient education estates.

 

This paper shares insights from the delivery of two highly complex retrofit projects at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), delivered by Tilbury Douglas, and draws out lessons applicable across the wider education estate.

The projects comprised LSTM’s new Human Challenge Facility (HCF) and a new Containment Level 3 robotics laboratory. Both were delivered within an existing office building that remained partially occupied throughout. The ground and first floors were stripped out, followed by the fit out of the HCF at ground level and the CL3 robotics laboratory above, while the remaining floors continued to operate fully.

By prioritising retrofit rather than new build, the schemes supported sustainability and decarbonisation objectives through retention and upgrade of the existing asset.

The HCF transformed former office space into 12 negative pressure isolation suites, creating the UK’s largest academic facility of its kind through partnership with academic, civic and healthcare stakeholders. In parallel, the team delivered AI enabled CL3 laboratories incorporating robotic systems to accelerate infectious disease research.

Both projects presented significant technical challenges. The HCF required complex mechanical and electrical installations, with each isolation suite carefully balanced to maintain negative pressure for infection control.

The CL3 robotics laboratory demanded specialist integration of autoclaves, sealed service pendants and ventilation thimbles designed to withstand disinfectant fumigation.

Tilbury Douglas adopted an integrated digital approach, enabling coordinated services design, improved buildability and early engagement with mechanical and electrical specialists.

Delivered within a live environment, the projects required careful phasing and proactive stakeholder management to protect business continuity.

Together, the projects demonstrate practical lessons in the safe delivery of complex works within occupied buildings, achieving compliance upgrades without intrusive demolition, and delivering wider outcomes including estate resilience, flexibility and meaningful social value through local engagement and skills development.

Learning Outcomes: 

1. Understand how a retrofit first approach can retain existing assets, reduce demolition and embodied carbon impacts, and deliver modern high-performance specialist learning and research environments.
2. Identify how treating M&E as the critical path from the outset: through early design engagement, specialist equipment integration, rigorous coordination and a commissioning-led approach, can manage complex services, pressure regimes, infection control requirements, safety and programme risk while ensuring compliance and operational performance.
3. Applying disciplined surveys, phasing, logistics, stakeholder engagement and business-continuity planning to deliver complex upgrades safely within live, occupied education buildings.

True innovation in architecture and construction is not just about design and methodology; it is about proving that ambitious targets can survive the realities of scale. At Europe’s largest Passivhaus development, the University of Manchester's Fallowfield Residences, the project team is testing these limits. When complete, this flagship project will deliver 3,300 student bedrooms and 66 support units, all while achieving full Passivhaus accreditation.

 One of the hurdles facing sustainable construction is the perception that rigorous eco-standards demand prohibitive costs and prolonged timelines. Fallowfield challenges this mindset through a strategic choice of cost-effective construction methodology. By utilising a precast cross-wall system, the project accepts a higher initial material investment in exchange for rapid assembly, fewer on-site trades, and factory-controlled precision and safety. The result is superior architectural quality, significantly improved airtightness, enhanced acoustic performance, high thermal mass, inherent robustness and fire resistance, and drastically reduced waste.

 However, delivering Passivhaus at this volume requires more than advanced engineering; it demands a cultural shift. Manufacturing precision fails without well-controlled execution on the ground. To bridge the gap between established habit and new approach, a bespoke tradesperson training programme was deployed by Passivhaus specialists Mosart and Graham Construction. This initiative upskills the current workforce, transforming this project advantage into a set of transferable skills for the wider industry.

 Ultimately, sustainability is not just a building metric; it translates directly into human experience. Fallowfield improves students’ wellness by providing exceptional air quality and thermal comfort. Furthermore, by eliminating the need for scaffolding, the development preserves the site’s mature trees, exceeding statutory Biodiversity Net Gain targets. Behind these numbers lies a tangible everyday benefit for everyone on campus. Fallowfield proves that when we align cultural adaptation with smart technological solutions, mega-scale sustainability is no longer a missed opportunity - it is an achievable reality.

Learning Outcomes:

1  Making sustainability affordable: Strategic methodology offsets upfront capital costs with rapid, low-waste assembly.

2 Cultural alignment essential: Manufacturing precision fails without project-specific, on-site workforce upskilling.

3 Human-centric outcomes: True sustainability translates technical targets into human wellness.

The transformation of Barnsley College’s former Mining and Technical College into the South Yorkshire Institute of Technology (IoT) demonstrates how a historic educational building can be adapted to meet the demands of modern technical education, while retaining its architectural identity.

Originally constructed in 1932, the 6,200sq.m Art Deco building had remained in educational use for more than 90 years. However, outdated services, poor insulation, inefficient gas heating and constrained internal spaces meant that significant intervention was required. Located within a conservation area and remaining operational during the works, the project presented a complex combination of heritage, sustainability and construction challenges.

The £16 million refurbishment, delivered in September 2025, was funded through a combination of Department for Education investment, College funding and Salix funding. This funding strategy enabled the team to address both the specific requirements of the IoT and the wider refurbishment of the building, with a strong emphasis on a fabric-first approach.

Thermal performance was central to the strategy. Improvements to insulation reduced heat loss by approximately 82%, representing an estimated saving of 118 MWh per year when considered in isolation. The building was also transitioned from gas heating to an all-electric VRF system, reducing heating-related carbon emissions by approximately 70%. Point-of-use water heaters further reduced energy losses by removing continuous distribution and circulation requirements.

Architecturally, one of the most significant interventions was the transformation of the previously underutilised central courtyard. A new glazed atrium and three-storey tiered floor created a distinctive learning, resource and collaboration space, linking previously disconnected areas and establishing a new heart for the building. Existing heritage features were carefully retained and celebrated, while complex roof levels, low ceilings and restricted service routes required detailed 3D coordination and close multidisciplinary collaboration.

Construction logistics were equally challenging. The town-centre location provided limited laydown and access, while works were undertaken within a live educational environment. Careful sequencing and coordination were therefore essential. The project also created social value opportunities, including construction work placements for Barnsley College students, connecting the development of the building with the development of future skills.

The presentation will bring together perspectives from the client, architect and contractor, demonstrating how collaborative decision-making, sensitive refurbishment and innovative engineering can deliver a future-ready educational environment without losing the character and history of the original building.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand how funding strategies and how improving the thermal performance of an existing educational building can reduce energy demand and support decarbonisation, while working within heritage and natural ventilation constraints.

2. Explore how collaborative design, construction logistics and heritage-sensitive interventions can overcome the challenges of delivering modern learning environments within constrained, occupied buildings.

3. Identify practical lessons from the project that can be applied to the future refurbishment and decarbonisation of existing educational buildings, particularly those with heritage constraints

When the UK's first PFI school opened in Hull in January 1999, it represented the future of education infrastructure. The ribbon was cut by local politician John Prescott, and the presenters of this talk were both at school themselves, no doubt worrying about the Millennium Bug.

Neither of us imagined that we’d be here, 25 years later, talking about the school’s handback.

Back to the present day, and PFI expiry is a very real issue for trusts, local authorities and their partners. Although there’s plenty of guidance available, the majority of organisations have never been through the handback process, and it can be a very different experience to what the handbook tells you to expect.

The main thing we discovered is that PFI handback isn’t about buildings. It’s about relationships, records, governance, memory, and sometimes, trying to understand why someone made a decision in 1998 and never wrote down a reason.

Finding original source information was interesting, to say the least. Today’s school pupils would laugh to hear information may have been kept on CD-ROMs, floppy disks, or even an old-school filing cabinet.

Our talk won’t be a traditional presentation. Instead, our session will be a fireside chat, exploring the realities of handback through open discussion, practical examples and lessons from our time living and breathing PFI handback. We’ll talk honestly about what surprised us, what worked well, what we’d do differently, and how those experiences shape the way we manage our PFI partnerships today.

We'll also share the handback toolkit we've developed from our experience, including practical templates, checklists and tools that helped us navigate the PFI process.

We want you to leave our talk with practical ideas you can take away and apply to your own projects, while demonstrating that to have a successful handback you need to start preparing much earlier than you think. 

Learning Outcomes

1. That PFI handback is about relationships more than it is about buildings.
2.  Why sources and records are key to a successful PFI handback.
3. A handback toolkit to take away and use to help you start your PFI handback process and make sure it goes smoothly.

 

When I was at school, our classrooms had single-glazed windows, little insulation and no real ventilation. In winter they were freezing. In summer they were unbearably hot. Looking back, it is hard to believe we were expected to learn in those conditions.

Many schools have improved significantly, but thousands of pupils still learn in ageing buildings. Years of underinvestment during the 1980s and 1990s created a huge maintenance backlog that will take decades to address. 

While the Department for Education’s Construction Frameworks have set ambitious standards for operational net zero and, more recently, embodied carbon targets of 550kgCO₂e/m², designing a good building is only part of the challenge.

The real question is whether these schools are actually performing as intended.

How many projects are revisited after occupation to understand whether they are achieving their energy targets? Are classrooms maintaining comfortable temperatures and healthy CO₂ levels? Are building systems operating as they were designed? More importantly, are we creating the best possible environment for children to learn?

The encouraging news is that much of this information already exists. Modern schools are fitted with sensors measuring temperature, air quality, occupancy and energy use. Yet much of this valuable data remains unused.

What is clearly around the corner is the application of artificial intelligence. By combining environmental, occupancy and operational data, AI has the potential to identify the conditions that create the best learning environments and optimise buildings in real time. It could automatically adjust ventilation, heating and cooling while continually learning how buildings respond to their users.

 

For too long we have judged schools by how they were designed. The next step is to judge them by how they actually perform. If we are serious about creating the best possible learning environments, understanding how our schools perform is no longer optional, it is essential.

Learning Outcomes

By attending this session, delegates will:

1. Understand the gap between the intended design performance of school buildings and their actual performance in use.

2. Recognise how environmental data, including temperature, CO₂, occupancy and energy consumption, can help assess the quality of learning environments.

3. Explore how artificial intelligence and real-time building data could improve comfort, air quality, energy efficiency and the long-term operation of schools.

The publication of the Department for Education's Inclusive Education Estates Design Guidance marks an important shift in how we think about the role of the education estate. While the guidance provides practical advice on creating environments that better support learners with SEND, its significance extends well beyond design detail. It reinforces a broader policy direction in which inclusion is becoming a core measure of a successful estate.
This is reflected in the recently published Education Estates Strategy, where one of the four strategic objectives is to create an estate that is suitable: flexible enough to respond to changing educational, demographic and community needs while supporting inclusive education for all learners.
For trusts, this presents an opportunity to think differently about estate planning. Inclusive design should not be viewed as a specialist consideration or a compliance exercise. Instead, it should inform strategic decisions about capital investment, refurbishment and the everyday use of existing buildings.
This is particularly relevant as many trusts review their estates in response to changing pupil numbers. Rather than focusing solely on surplus capacity, there is an opportunity to ask a different question: how could these spaces better support inclusion? Repurposing underused accommodation as nurture spaces, small-group teaching areas or inclusion bases can improve suitability without necessarily requiring major new-build investment.
Perhaps the most important message from the new guidance is that good inclusive design is not about designing for diagnostic labels. It is about understanding the functional needs of learners and creating environments that reduce barriers, support wellbeing and enable participation.
As trusts develop long-term estate strategies, inclusive design should become a thread running through planning, investment and project delivery. In many ways, it is no longer simply a SEND conversation—it is becoming central to what makes an education estate fit for the future.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand the strategic policy direction
• Understand how the Schools White Paper, Education Estates Strategy and DfE Inclusive Education Estates Design Guidance are reshaping expectations for inclusive estate planning across mainstream and specialist education.
2. Apply inclusive design principles in practice
• Identify practical approaches to embedding inclusive design into estate strategy, capital planning, refurbishment and project delivery, drawing on real-world case studies from architects and trust estates leaders.
3. Translate policy into long-term estate strategy
• Explore how trusts can create more adaptable, future-ready learning environments by aligning inclusive design with estate suitability, changing pupil needs, space utilisation and long-term asset planning

Trauma-informed design (TID) is an emerging approach that integrates the principles of trauma-informed care into the built environment. At its heart is a simple idea: our environment affects how people feel, behave and connect with others. Environmental conditions such as noise, poor legibility, limited privacy or lack of control can heighten stress and reduce confidence, making it harder to concentrate, regulate emotions and feel safe. TID responds by shaping environments that actively support wellbeing, learning and recovery.

TID is especially valuable because it is practical and achievable. It does not rely on costly interventions or specialist building types. Instead, it offers a clear, replicable framework that can be applied to existing buildings and new build projects across education, healthcare, community settings and beyond. While it is particularly relevant in places where people may already be managing stress, uncertainty or past trauma, its benefits are much wider. In practice, trauma-informed environments can create calmer, more inclusive and more effective places for everyone, including neurodivergent people. A useful way to understand TID is through four core principles: safety and trust, choice and empowerment, community and collaboration, beauty and joy.

• Safety and trust are supported through clear layouts, predictable circulation, good visibility and spaces that feel welcoming rather than institutional.

• Choice and empowerment come from giving people more control over how they use space, through variety in spaces, quiet areas, access to daylight and opportunities for privacy and retreat.

• Community and collaboration are encouraged through spaces that support connection and belonging without overwhelming those who need calm or separation.

• Beauty and joy remind us that supportive environments should do more than function well. They should also feel uplifting, dignified and human.

The way a building is managed and operated matters just as much as its layout, materials or lighting. If the culture of a place does not reflect empathy, inclusion and trust, the environment alone cannot deliver trauma-informed outcomes. Policies, behaviours and patterns of use need to reinforce the principles embedded in the design. In education settings, the structure of learning, staff relationships and day-to-day routines all become part of the trauma-informed approach.

To help translate these principles into action, we developed a white paper in collaboration with the University of Salford. Bringing together research, lived experiences and practical design thinking, it shows how TID can be embedded in real projects and provides useful guidance for clients, designers and educators.

The University of Salford’s Thrive Health and Wellbeing Centre offers a strong example of these ideas in practice. As the UK’s first trauma-informed building, it demonstrates how TID can be translated into an environment that supports both learning and wellbeing, while showing that trauma-informed principles can be embedded in a practical, credible and scalable way.

The case for TID is strengthened by its outcomes. In education, trauma-aligned spaces can support positive behavioural, emotional and cognitive development, improving student wellbeing, attainment and colleague retention. More broadly, trauma-informed environments can contribute to better health outcomes, earlier support and reduced downstream costs.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand how the four core principles of trauma-informed design (TID) can be applied as a practical framework to shape safe, supportive and inclusive environments across different sectors, budgets and project scales.
2. Recognise that effective TID depends on both the physical environment and the day-to-day culture of a place, embedding empathy, trust, inclusion and choice into how people experience spaces.
3. Identify the wider benefits of trauma-informed environments, including improved wellbeing, stronger learning outcomes, better staff retention and long-term social and operational value.

Safe Schools for the Future presents timely, research-backed industry guidance designed to support clients, estate managers, and designers in unlocking the full potential of timber-framed schools. Despite England’s predominant reliance on concrete and steel, timber frame offers a proven route to delivering healthier, more comfortable, high performing school buildings with significantly lower environmental impact — and this session shows how those benefits can be realised safely, confidently, and at scale.

Funded by the Forestry Commission, this free guidance directly addresses significant barriers to increasing the responsible use of home-grown timber in construction, responding both to the climate emergency and to the urgent need for cost-effective, future-ready education estates.

Primary schools are an ideal building typology for timber frame due to their scale, repetition, and operational requirements. However, much existing guidance is either domestically focused or centred on mass timber solutions, which can be unnecessarily complex, costly, and carbon-intensive for many school projects. This presentation fills that gap with practical, school-specific workflows, data, and decision-making tools.

A central focus is fire safety — a key concern for estate managers and designers alike. Drawing on the latest research from leading experts including Professor José Torero (UCL), Professor Luke Bisby (University of Edinburgh), and Joachim Schmid (IGNIS), the session demonstrates how a performance-based approach to fire resistance can provide robust, transparent, and iterative outcomes for timber-framed schools, where prescriptive routes fall short.

The presentation shares real-world findings from a recently completed exemplar Architype Passivhaus primary school, showcasing emerging fire engineering methods that improve clarity to reduce risk. These approaches unlock meaningful reductions in embodied carbon and construction cost, without compromising life safety.

Critically, the approach can better England’s most demanding operational energy and embodied carbon targets, with analysis showing reliable design within a ±5% embodied carbon tolerance — offering estate managers confidence, predictability, and savings.

Learning Outcomes

1.  A nuanced understanding of holistic design to achieve consistent outcomes for energy, carbon, health, fire, and cost.
2.  A nuanced understanding of the complexities around demonstrating fire resistance with timber construction from world-leading fire experts
3.  Data and drawings with rules of thumb to support project teams to implement these insights and recommendations
4.  Signposting to 17 constructed examples to refer to as precedent studies to support individual projects
5.  Insights into the latest methodologies for performance-based fire calculations from the continent which are to be adopted by the UK

 

Alternative Provision is often an educational Cinderella and not known for thoughtful design or attractive buildings, but more children are being educated in specialist settings now than at any time in the last half century, and these settings are earmarked for significant investment. Led by an inspirational headteacher and including the pupil voice, and supported by the design and contractor of this highly collaborative team, this presentation explains the broad goals of Alternative Provision, sets out key principles behind teaching and behaviour management, and explains how the innovative and inclusive design of this newly-completed whole site for the Francis Barber Pupil Referral Unit [PRU] responded to the client’s brief, and created a fresh approach to building layout and detailing to support the overall vision.

Starting from an understanding of the complex and often disrupted lives of children in Alternative Provision, the talk will explain what a day in the life of a typical PRU looks like, including the triggers for disruption and positive tools for calming. The headteacher will explain how the brief was written and how it was modified with fresh ideas from the design team to take advantage of new insights during the collaborative design and consultation process, including the sometimes comic, occasionally tragic, events in the users’ lives that influence the thinking. The narrative will explain how the buildings can help to create safe and supportive environments while maintaining the necessary robustness. It will also provide reflections of the wider applicability of the project’s approach.

For those writing a brief or designing an Alternative Provision environment, this talk will provide a short theoretical background, lessons learnt from experience, and many practical and original tips for an aspirational approach that goes above and beyond the baseline.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understanding the "whole child" approach
2. Pedagogical challenges and techniques when working in Alternative Provision
3. Key points in briefing that are not often in the DfE standard items

The number of students with Education, Health and Care Plans continues to rise year on year, especially among post 16 learners [1]. In 2025 to 2026, 948,340 adult learners participated in Education and Training, of whom 23.9 percent were recorded as having a learning difficulty and or disability, up from 23.0 percent last year [2]. This growth is placing sustained pressure on mainstream further education colleges to adapt, particularly as the share of learners placed in specialist institutions remains at around 10 percent [3], leaving an increasing majority to be supported within mainstream settings.

There will be a larger cohort of high needs learners within mainstream FE colleges, requiring more specialist spaces, clearer zoning between high‑stimulation and low‑stimulation areas, and buildings that flex as demographic pressures rise.
While demand has increased, funding per place has fallen. Specialist college enrolments rose from just over 3,000 to more than 9,500 between 2017 and 2025 yet top up funding per place fell from £50,000 to £36,000, a 28 percent reduction [4]. Local authority budgets are under exceptional strain, which will affect further education planning. High needs deficits could reach £5 to £8 billion by 2027 [5], and the Safety Valve programme that supported failing budgets ended in March 2026. Within these constraints, college designs must become more adaptable, inclusive, and efficient, integrating specialist spaces within mainstream estates and prioritising investments with the greatest impact on outcomes.

In February 2026, the Government launched a 10-year national renewal programme for schools and colleges, marking a shift from patch and mend to strategic, long-term renewal. It commits £38 billion of capital investment to create inclusive; climate resilient buildings fit for future cohorts [6]. The national estates strategy aims to transform colleges, with every college expected to provide inclusion bases, dedicated calm spaces for targeted support that bridge mainstream and specialist provision. College estates will increasingly operate as part of a continuum between mainstream and specialist provision, requiring adaptable, highly inclusive environments that support a wide range of needs.

The sector is beginning to move toward neurodiversity affirming design. Priorities include sensory zoning, identity supportive environments, and modular eco solutions that can be delivered quickly and scaled. Post occupancy evaluations show that acoustics, lighting, thresholds, visual sequencing, and predictable circulation patterns are having a direct impact on attendance, engagement, and progression.
At Arcadis we are exploring the hybrid SEND and mainstream model. At Cheadle College we have delivered a 4,300 m2 new education building with two teaching wings arranged around a central community space, with SEND specific areas in the north wing, Choices on the ground floor and Progression above. Sensory appropriate principles are embedded throughout, supporting independence, wellbeing, and progression while aligning the physical environment with modern educational goals. The building is highly adaptable, integrating architecture, interiors, and landscape to provide a flexible and efficient environment that can respond to future changes in curriculum and student requirements, setting a new standard for inclusive, creative, and user centred educational spaces

References:

[1] https://natspec.org.uk/key-facts-2025-data-and-trends-for-send-in-fe/
[2] https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/further-education-and-skills/2025-26
[3] https://natspec.org.uk/key-facts-2025-data-and-trends-for-send-in-fe/
[4] https://natspec.org.uk/key-facts-2025-data-and-trends-for-send-in-fe/
[5] https://feweek.co.uk/dfe-told-to-come-clean-on-its-send-reforms-plan/
[6] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/10-year-plan-to-revitalise-schools-and-colleges-for-every-child

Learning Outcomes

1. An understanding of Policy and Funding Challenges for SEND provision.
2. The growing need for integration of SEND Provision within mainstream FE Settings.
3. The importance of innovative and Neurodiversity-Affirming Design within mainstream colleges.

NowtHaus is a collaboration between Bennetts Associates, Ramboll and CPC that reframes school design by asking not what systems are needed for comfort, but what conditions do people need to be comfortable? By simplifying mechanical services in favour of a high-performance passive envelope, it delivers schools that are cheaper to build and run, lower in carbon, more resilient — and fully compliant with the comfort and air-quality criteria of BB101 (2018).

Introduction
Since the Milam Building of 1928, institutional architecture has been designed around mechanical systems rather than people. HVAC now accounts for 15–20% of total project cost, is typically replaced after around 15 years, and is both energy-intensive in operation and carbon-hungry in manufacture. For school estates — with constrained budgets, limited maintenance capacity and long asset lives — NowtHaus asks what happens if the HVAC is removed entirely?

Design Principles
We studied a set of prototypical school rooms with 40% window-to-wall ratio, PassivHaus envelope, 200 mm exposed concrete slabs, ≥3 m ceiling heights and motorised openings for day-time and night-purge ventilation. Lighting gains supply background heat, while shading, mass and air movement keep it cool. Mechanical services shrink to simple extract fans. Pupils and staff can override controls; the BMS safeguards security and frost protection.

Performance against BB101
Under a typical UK summer (32 °C outdoor peak), exposed concrete soffits with solar control and night purge hold indoor felt-temperature peaks to 26 °C — meaning the design meets all three BB101 adaptive comfort criteria. Even in an extreme heatwave (42 °C outdoor peak), the ~200 mm concrete slab continues to absorb heat and indoor peaks stay around 30 °C, within the adaptive range. Resilience is built in without mechanical cooling. BB101 also requires naturally ventilated classrooms to hold a daily average CO₂ below 1,500 ppm, remain below 1,200 ppm for the majority of occupied time, and never exceed 2,000 ppm for more than 20 consecutive minutes. NowtHaus records CO₂ below 900 ppm for 99% of occupied hours, typically below 750 ppm, and never above 1,300 ppm, comfortably inside every BB101 threshold. Fresh-air rates far exceed the mechanical baseline for 92% of the year, greatly improving cognitive function compared to a typical mechanical system.

Cost, Carbon and Applicability
Capex is redistributed: façade cost rises by 8–9% of total build cost, but omitting HVAC removes 11–14%, with further savings from removing fire dampers and air risers (~1.5–2% NIA). Headline outcomes are ~15% capex reduction, 35% opex reduction, 10% embodied carbon cut and 26% operational energy cut. The approach suits shallower floor plates (~10.5 m) and rooms with reduced loads. There are limitations of course, and not all rooms (I.T rooms for example) are well suited. However, modular upgrades can provide additional capacity only where necessary.

Conclusion
NowtHaus proves that a rigorously passive envelope can satisfy every BB101 metric, slash capex and opex and eliminate mechanical complexity. Designing the HVAC out gives schools a resilient, low-carbon template for today’s budgets and tomorrow’s climate.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand what adaptive comfort is and what the benefits are to its application
2. Understand how a purely passive education building might work
3. Understand the benefits in terms of cost, maintenance, carbon, fresh air, comfort and aesthetics.