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Work gets underway at co-located Bellsmyre Primary Schools

July 27 2015

Work gets underway at co-located Bellsmyre  Primary Schools
West Dunbartonshire Council has begun work on co-located primary schools at Bellsmyre, Dumbarton, offering space for pupils of Aitkenbar and St Peter’s Primaries on one site next to a newly built communtiy hall.

Designed by Holmes Miller the facility is being built on the site of the existing St Peter’s Primary and is scheduled to open its doors by August 2016.

Sharing a dining hall, assembly room, gym and playground the schools will be run separately with each school having its own dedicated entrance.

In their design statement the architects noted: “High quality facing brick is used to articulate the elevations and define the teaching accommodation, a contrasting brick is proposed to create a warm and textured appearance.

“The building form is defined by a combination of one and two storey masses. The linear classroom arrangement facing the street is mastered by an aluminium clad hood wrapping over it. The brick and glass elevation below is articulated by a feature single storey projecting ‘cube’ pods in a  contrasting brick which creates a variety of external teaching spaces.”

The new school is being delivered by Hub West Scotland alongside a £25m new building for Our Lady & St Patrick’s secondary which has been beset by delays.
Both co-located schools will retain their own dedicated entrance spaces
Both co-located schools will retain their own dedicated entrance spaces

3 Comments

D to the R
#1 Posted by D to the R on 29 Jul 2015 at 13:42 PM
It bemuses me when I see school design hasn't emerged beyond the PFI / PPP quality of design that derides the late 90's. Image 2 will be awash with Kingspan Cladding and a cheap louvre system. Those windows will look dated already - even in a aspirational render - really? The other two images show some promise but come on? You don't need to venture too far to find good school precedents; Hillhead + Hazelwood? hashtag/dire
Trombe Wall
#2 Posted by Trombe Wall on 29 Jul 2015 at 14:22 PM
#1 - I kinda agree, although i think the Walters and Cohen reference design, which this basically is, happens to be pretty great. It is lean and the whole building can be used as a teaching environment. It's odd that, as a whole host of these are rolled out, through hub, other firms are quoted as 'designing it'. But i suppose that is a separate deabte. In this case, certainly, an amount of redesign has been done to presumably suite the site and a slightly varied accommodation schedule.
Clive
#3 Posted by Clive on 30 Jul 2015 at 06:15 AM
Combining two schools into one building clearly has economic benefits.
Combining two schools into one building, both of the same level of tuition (primary) and yet keeping them wholly separate is madness!

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