ALLEYNS SCHOOL - WELLNESS CENTER
ABOUT PROJECT
Alleyns School, Dulwich.
When Alleyns School decided to create a place which centralised mental health and wellbeing services for pupils and adults, PJ Harte were delighted to be instructed to construct the new building. The new building was designed to house nurses and councillors as well as an activity room for pastoral and mental fitness activities to help the pupils and local community to find calm in a sometimes-chaotic world.
Construction commenced in late September 2022 and was completed prior to the Easter break in 2023 with many challenges in between. Due to the client’s desire for the building to be sustainable, a more modern method of construction was used rather than the more traditional form. As such, the shell of the building was created using a steel frame and structural insulated panels in order to provide a more efficient method due to off site manufacture of each panel.
Project Details
Client: Alleyns School
Surveyor: The Bailey Partnership
Contract Value: £850k Location: Dulwich, London
Project Manager: Danny Allen
CHALLENGES
During the course of the excavation for the foundations, historical foundations of a previous building were uncovered adding additional time to this element of the works. In order to mitigate the time lost, specific works were accelerated once the foundations were completed and SIPS panels were in place so that the internal and external works could be carried out at the same time.
The client’s desire to use Birch ply for all the internal bespoke joinery was also curtailed because of the current conflict in Ukraine due to this being one of the country’s main exports. In an effort to reduce the project’s embodied energy use, we were able to locally source an alternative material of similar appearance which significantly reduced the lead time for internal joinery.
