Yeovil College’s Construction Skills Centre designed by Studio LIME has recently been completed.

Yeovil College was allocated funding in support of a project to relocate the Construction Skills Centre to a new purpose-built centre on the main campus. The relocation allows construction students to enjoy the benefits of college life, such as: Access to learning resources, access to social areas and gastronomic facilities, access to learning support and the opportunity to meet and socialise with students of other departments.

The four main workshop areas are arranged in a simple rectangular layout, with the circulation and support spaces ‘wrapped’ around them and the brickwork space located at the end.

As this is a construction skills learning environment, the design replicate a construction site in some ways: The workshop areas are the only spaces that are fully serviced and heated. The circulation, storage and the brickwork area are covered and weather protected but not heated. Such an arrangement minimizes the use of energy and therefore saves our Client unnecessary costs. The Siberian larch cladding is virtually maintenance free and has very good environmental credentials. It achieves an A+ rating in the BRE Green Guide to Specification. The energy/environmental performance of this scheme was not specified as part of the brief for this project and has been developed as a value added initiative to the project.