The Walters Sixth Form Centre, Clifton High School
A new Common Room building
Our client said….
The Walters Sixth Form is a space in which students genuinely feel at home, supported by staff and peers in an environment that befits their developing maturity and independence.
- Katherine Rich, Head of Sixth Form
We were selected by Clifton High School, Bristol, to design a building for their new Sixth Form Common Room which would link to their existing Sixth Form Centre. We worked with the governors, facilities team and the wider school community to develop the brief and subsequent design.
The Story
The entire school is located in the Clifton Conservation Area, and the existing Sixth Form Centre, to which we had to link, is a grade II listed Georgian townhouse. The site was an existing car parking area at the lower ground floor level to the rear of the listed building.
Rather than connecting directly to the existing townhouse at the lower level in accordance with the original brief, our design evolved to create a glazed two-storey link from the existing Sixth Form Centre entrance level with two new landscaped courtyards. We also created a new connection between the Sixth Form centre and main school.
Our proposals, which respected the listed Georgian townhouse, were enthusiastically supported by the school and local amenity groups, and received full planning and listed building consents in the statutory period of eight weeks.
Following on from a full construction package and traditional tender, work starred on site in March 2022 with O'LearyGoss acting as Contract Administration and Principal Designer under a traditional JCT contract. The structure is complex mix of timber and steel, with very tight tolerances on this restricted site.
Clad with local stone over a timber frame, the building has a high level of insulation. Together with underfloor heating provided by air source heat pumps, and automated ventilation, the new building is low carbon and sustainable, as required by the school’s initial brief.
The new building provides a double height Common Room for 16-18 year old students, with a ground level ‘cafe’ floor and a balcony mezzanine above. Is has state-of-the-art audio visual systems, so in addition to providing an areas for relaxation of students during the daytime, the building can also accommodate lectures, assemblies and events for the school as a whole.
The completed building links back to the original red brick school building with path across the school green.
Project Team:
Client: Clifton High School
Planning consultant: Aspect 360
Consulting structural & civil engineers: KB2
Consulting services engineers: Smith Consult
Cost consultant: Ross Management Services
Contractor: 21st Century Building Services