The Sir Thomas Fremantle School is a 600-place Secondary School on a greenfield site in Winslow, Buckinghamshire. The school has also been designed to maximise accessibility to its facilities so they can be promoted for local community use.
The school comprises three primary spaces; the main teaching block, the central hub, and the sports hall, all of which are linked, steel framed structures. The main teaching block is typically three storeys in height, but this varies across the main entrance area where double height spaces create a central atrium. The central hub area contains reception, dance and fitness studios, and an information centre, all of which have been designed to be within a separate zone from the main teaching space, allowing for the local community to use these facilities outside of school hours. Within the main teaching wing, each of the three floors contains a series of classrooms linked by a central corridor and breakout spaces.
The structure consists of a steel frame that is braced in both directions, with portal frames to the sports hall, dance and fitness studios, and dining hall, providing lateral stability to the frame. The ground floor is an in-situ reinforced concrete slab, predominantly a 200mm thick ground bearing slab. However, the ground floor slab adjacent to an existing line of trees along the boundary is suspended over a layer of heave protection, which is required due to the ground conditions and proximity of nearby trees. The upper floor slabs are precast planks with a structural topping, spanning between primary steel beams that span between the column grid. The precast planks bear onto steel angles that are welded within the web of the primary steelwork, reducing the depth of the structural zone. A lightweight roof is used throughout, consisting of a series of cold rolled purlins supporting a lightweight cladding panel system.
Externally, the site is landscaped to create outdoor spaces for students, sports pitches, and car parking from the main entrance. There is also a fenced off Multi Use Games Area to the rear of the site, used for outdoor games.
The large greenfield site was advantageous during the construction phase, although a nearby gas main that crossed the edge of the site required protection to ensure the area was not trafficked by construction vehicles. The new school was positioned to avoid the exclusion zone in accordance with PADHI requirements.
Completed 2017.
