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The Proving House

101 Sevier Street, Bristol, BS2 9LB.

Company Registration Number - 3499053 (UK)

Dartington Primary

Devon

White Design has been employed to undertake the design of a new Primary School for Dartington Primary School near Totnes. The Existing school has a wonderful and vibrant environment and it is obvious to any visitor that despite the poor physical condition of the buildings the energy and quality of learning is outstanding. The challenge is to understand and transpose this unique quality into a new school, to be located on a nearby green field.

To ensure the design of the new school fully reflects the aspirations of ALL stakeholders (pupils, staff, governors, parents and council), a series of consultation events were organized to capture and record thoughts, ideas and views. These events formulated and defined the accommodation brief which the following concept designs  have been based upon.

The building fabric is also entirely made from timber and represents a major ‘carbon bank’ when calculating the embodied carbon and embodied energy of the project. It is our intention to demonstrate that using this construction technique that this project can be measured as being a low carbon development.

Combining innovative mechanical and electrical systems, it is proposed that the running costs will also be reduced by utilising energy conserving systems.  Alongside the benefits to the environment and the energy savings of using innovative construction techniques, it is our intention to use the buildings as a learning tool itself by providing visible outputs for children to engage with. These will be in the form of exposed structural timber with ‘peek-a-boo’ construction windows, energy generation and consumption display meters in the classrooms and clear rainwater storage ‘fat pipes’ behind the wc’s.