Berkhamsted Sixth Form Centre
- location:
- Berkhamsted
- client:
- Berkhamsted Schools Group
- role:
- Architecture
- sector:
- Education
- status:
- Planning
Innovative teaching, learning and social spaces, designed to equip students with the skills and confidence to succeed
The new Sixth Form Centre building and associated landscaping on the Castle Campus for Berkhamsted School is currently under construction, having received planning permission from Dacorum Borough Council in 2021.
The Sixth Form is one of three projects that represent the first phase of a campus-wide masterplan completed by the practice. A new Estates Hub Building was constructed to decant staff from the proposed Sixth Form site. The recently completed interior renovation of Dean’s Hall, an existing early 20th-century building, has created a state-of-the-art multi-purpose building for lectures and events.
In 2017, we were commissioned as estate-wide masterplanners for Berkhamsted School. Berkhamsted is a family of leading independent schools based across multiple sites across Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. They provide high-quality education and care for boys and girls aged 5 months to 18 years. There are six schools that combine both single-sex and co-educational teaching in a ‘diamond pattern’. Here the youngest boys and girls are taught together, then separated between the ages of 11 and 16, before coming back together in a joint co-educational Sixth Form.
Construction began onsite in late 2023, with targeted completion for the start of 2025.
The Brief
Design Team
- project manager:
- Bidwells
- structural engineer:
- Heyne Tillett Steel
- quantity surveyor:
- Jackson Coles
- acoustic consultant:
- Sustainable Acoustics
- landscape consultant:
- Land Use Consultants
- planning consultant:
- Bidwells
One of the key drivers for the School to secure a sustainable future was the need to create a modernised and consolidated Sixth Form to provide students with a solid foundation in preparation for university life and their future careers.
The Masterplan indicated that Lower School students and Upper Sixth, currently housed separately, had the opportunity to be brought together in one facility. The site for a new Sixth Form Centre was to be located on a key part of the existing Castle campus. This location is significant in the context of both the school’s listed buildings and the public realm at the heart of Berkhamsted town centre.
The proposed building offers the opportunity to remove a number of existing poor quality buildings and enhance the surrounding area with a high quality, contemporary architectural design.
Design Approach
This project represents an immensely important forward step for the Berkhamsted Schools Group and will provide a Sixth Form Centre that will equip its students with the skills and confidences that excel in the context of a fast-changing world.Rod Graham, Design Engine Founding Director
The new building will create a significant and valuable modern academic and pastoral space while releasing other similar spaces within the Senior School. The accommodation, spread over three floors, will accommodate 400 students.
On the ground floor, a social learning café provides a vibrant space on arrival and opens onto a new landscaped wildflower meadow quad for sixth form students and staff to enjoy. An open-plan study space for private and individual classrooms are arranged on an opposing wing. These offer a blend of private independent study and timetabled classes.
A similar arrangement of teaching space and study commons is found on the first floor. One wing of classrooms is formed of retractable walls and screens. This innovation enables these classrooms to transform into one large open space, allowing students to undertake their exams in a familiar environment to where they are taught.
There is a separate incubator workspace called the ‘Your Futures Zone’, where graduates can set up their own businesses while students gain day-to-day inspiration and insight into the world of work.
The building rises to three storeys in the corner to provide further teaching space and 1-2-1 meeting rooms for pastoral care. This taller corner anchors the two teaching wings whilst addressing the urban context by creating a strong focal point at the end of a long vista along Mill Street. This approach also echoes surrounding buildings that similarly “turn the corner” and provide additional presence with an extra floor.
Materials and Sustainability
The proposal adopts a facetted brick gabled form on the public-facing elevations, to reflect and reinterpret the pitched forms of the adjacent campus buildings. Each individual pitched roof represents a single classroom, which itself benefits internally from a vaulted cross-laminated timber ceiling. The pitched roofline is also applied to the three-storey component, defining the main entrance through a glazed section leading to a triple-height void and a feature staircase.
The internal school-facing elevations are characterised by a double-height colonnade of precast concrete that mirrors the exposed concrete frame within. This component provides shade for the south and west facing rooms and shelter from the elements for the outdoor activities around the meadow garden.
The roof above is covered with a living green and blue roof to provide rainwater mitigation. Above this are photovoltaic panels which, together with the solar shading, the air-source heat pumps, the use of cross-laminated timber and the thermal mass of the concrete frame, contribute to the building’s environmental strategy.
