Barnsley BSF programme appoints Buro Happold
Buro Happold has been appointed engineering consultant for the Barnsley Building Schools for the Future programme. The appointment follows BSF experience built up by the practice delivering a number of award-winning educational facilities in Bristol.
Barnsley is one of the first areas to benefit from BSF, where 13 existing secondary schools are to be replaced with nine advanced learning centres (ALCs).
Working with a number of architectural practices, Buro Happold’s aim is to design a series of ALCs with a 60% lower carbon footprint than similar buildings — using technologies such as biomass boilers, solar panels and wind turbines.
David Beck, an associate director with Buro Happold, says, ‘Working with different architects has created some very different approaches to each of the schools. However, the engineering solutions share the common denominator that underpins all the schemes.’
To ensure that the new ALCs do not place unreasonable demands on existing infrastructure such as the public drainage system, features such as rainwater recycling and sustainable urban drainage schemes will be built into the designs.
The first of the new centres is expected to open in autumn 2010.
