Riverside School
A pre-installed Yorkon concrete floor minimised work on-site and provided enhanced acoustics and a high-quality, robust finish for a demanding school environment. Our services for this new free school involved setting out the requirements of BB 93. We are providing ongoing input on the acoustic issues associated with the design of the building envelope. An extension to the Overground is to pass close to the school in the future and we have provided advice to mitigate the risk of noise from passing trains.
The 23,000 sqm Riverside Schools scheme was one of the largest school construction projects at the time of construction. It aims to provide additional places for one of the fastest-growing school-age populations in the UK. The campus was built to have capacity for around 2,700 children from age 0 to 19, integrating provision for nursery, primary, special needs, secondary, and sixth form.
The Portakabin Group was the main contractor for this pioneering project. The contract was awarded by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) via the Council’s local education partnership (LEP), Thames Partnership for Learning. The project was procured by LBBD and funded by the Education Funding Agency (EFA). The architects were Surface to Air and the three free schools on the campus will be operated by the multi-academy trust, Partnership Learning. Sustainable Acoustics were the appointed acousticians, setting out the requirements for BB93.
Constructed using a Yorkon off-site solution for the curriculum areas, the scheme accommodates a 10-form entry secondary school, a 630-place primary school, a special educational needs (SEN) school, and a nursery. It also offers extended provision outside school hours and for wider use at weekends and in school holidays to contribute to the local community.
In addition to classroom facilities, the school boast a sports hall, four floodlit multi-use game areas and a full-sized all-weather playing pitch.
More recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in modular buildings. There is a recognition that they not only can be aesthetically pleasing, but they can also achieve a very high build quality and can be both long-lasting and sustainable.
A new fleet of modular buildings has emerged that includes a wide variety of sizes and configurations, with sector-specific building types, styles and options for variable plans and multi-storey configurations.
The gap between modular structures and traditional buildings has narrowed, and there has been an improvement in performance driven in part by regulatory standards but also by the availability of new materials.