Introduction
Solinear’s latest case study takes place on the outskirts of the city of St. Albans, Hertfordshire. St. Albans was the first major town on the old Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north and became the Roman city of Verulamium. Before the 20th century, St Albans was a rural market town, a Christian pilgrimage site, and the first coaching stop of the route to and from London, accounting for its numerous old taverns. Victorian era St Albans was relatively small, had little industry and population growth was slow in comparison to nearby London, for example. In 1858 the railway arrived followed by rapid expansion and a building boom.
In 1877, in response to a public petition, Queen Victoria issued the second royal charter, which granted city status to the borough and Cathedral status to the former Abbey Church. During the inter-war years St. Albans became a centre for the electronics industry. In the post-World War II years it expanded rapidly as part of the post-War redistribution of population out of Greater London. It is now a popular tourist destination.
In 1991 Oaklands College was established providing further education. It has been primarily based on two campuses with the St. Albans campus situated on the rural outskirts of the city. The historic Mansion House, dating from the 1800s, remains at the St Albans Campus.
In November 2017, the college gained permission for a multi-million-pound redevelopment of the St Albans Campus with a new centralised building providing the community and students with a more energy efficient and secure state of the art learning facility.
The new build would be an amalgamation of the separate Oaklands College sites of Borehamwood, St Albans City Campus and Welwyn Garden City and consist of new student accommodation, administration areas, teaching centres, workshops and sports pavilion. The realisation of DLA Architecture’s excellent vision of the development, facilitated by Willmott Dixon’s construction expertise, commenced in 2018 and has continued over a period of five years with completion of four phases.
The £13.4 million Evolution Centre – the core learning building on campus – being the second phase of the redevelopment as part of the £62m campus regeneration scheme to transform the site with modern state-of-the-art facilities.
The building was named The Evolution Centre after a consultation with staff and students, to represent the vital role it will have in the development of the staff and students. The new environment will allow teachers to focus on supporting the development of students, through skills, behaviours, confidence building and removing barriers.
Task
The Evolution Centre is the main teaching block on the St Albans campus, with 49 classrooms and support spaces for teaching staff. This part of the development would require brise soleil.
As members of Willmott Dixon’s approved supply chain database, Solinear priced at tender stage and proposed a bespoke Solex Halo-200 solar shading system as this was the closest match to the system which had been proposed by the architects. The proposal was accepted and Solinear was awarded the contract to design, manufacture, supply and install a bespoke Solex Halo-200 cantilever solar shading system befitting of this remarkable new development.
All works would have to be carried out with respect to rapidly changing guidelines regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and emerging variants.
Action
The Solinear team was pleased to be involved in this exciting new project which centred around providing a brise soleil system that would offer vital protection from solar glare and heat gain whilst also complementing the contemporary visual identity of the exterior design of the school.
Before the team could proceed with manufacturing the brise soleil system, Solinear completed a sun path analysis to demonstrate to the client and architect that the system and projection proposed was suitable to provide full shading to the windows during a worst-case scenario.
Once details had been discussed and agreed, Solinear would set about completing the system whilst adhering to Covid guidelines of the time. Covid would also prove to be a challenge to procuring the raw materials for the project, however, as soon as materials were made available, the Solinear team sprang into action.
The finished system was delivered to site where Installation to the south elevation of the building took only four days by two skilled Solinear fitters.
Result
Solinear’s Solex Halo-200 cantilever brise soleil system has been designed and manufactured to offer effective passive solar shading resulting in a more comfortable ambient interior temperature for the occupants of The Evolution Centre teaching block. In winter the projecting horizontal cantilever arrangement on the south elevation of the building will diffuse blinding low-level sun and in summer they’ll prevent the discomfort of heat gain.
With the energy crisis and net zero carbon targets to be reached in the next few years, energy efficiency is at the forefront of creating buildings that will be as economic as possible to run and with minimal environmental impact – the new college buildings will feature leading-edge sustainability facilities such as a ground source heat pump to heat the majority of the building, solar collectors to heat the sports hall hot water supply, both green and brown roofs and light shelves to reflect natural light into the building, reducing the need for artificial light and Solinear’s brise soleil system will also help to improve the efficiency of The Evolution Centre.
The aesthetics of the contemporary teaching block have been carefully considered with the Halo system finished in RAL 8003 30% gloss PPC finish (clay brown) providing architectural enhancement to the building, perfectly complementing and accenting the sleek black cladded façade.
Daisy Cooper, MP for St Albans, who officially opened The Evolution Centre commented: “It was a big honour to unveil the state-of-the-art Evolution Centre. The students are clearly enjoying the chance to study in a light, bright modern environment.”
In 2022 the Evolution Centre was awarded ‘Best Project Delivering Sustainability Outcomes’ at the 2022 Pagabo awards.
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