A sustainable and flexible new dining hall for a primary school based in North Bristol, designed to replace an outdated building and accommodate growing pupil numbers.
The project involved the construction of a new, stand-alone dining hall to serve a city center primary school in North Bristol. It replaced a 1950s timber framed annex that had come to the end of its life and was proving too small for the number of pupils at the school.
The building includes a large central hall, a commercial kitchen and an external dining terrace. The hall is dividable and has an adjacent kitchenette and WC, allowing most of the hall to be emptied and made available for community uses.
"Studio Lime have offered a seamless approach to design. We wanted an Architect with imagination, flare and practicality (a hard combination) and found it in Studio Lime, they listened to our ideas and created a striking entrance to the school which incorporated everything we wanted and more. Iain Martin’s knowledge in the field of architecture, planning and building is apparent and we felt assured by his expertise and design knowhow."
Martin Evans, Filton Avenue School
In order to avoid encroaching onto the adjacent playground and playing fields, neither of which would have been welcomed to the Local Authority, the new building matches the width of the previous dining hall. The length of the proposed development area has been increased into a disused part of the school grounds in order to provide the extra space necessary to serve current pupil numbers. This resulted in a long, thin, building that rises out of the ground on a plinth as the topography falls away.
The building is formed of SIPs panels over a steel portal frame. This was proposed in order to reduce the duration of on site construction and minimise disruption to the nearby classrooms. The exterior of the building is wrapped in a skin of standing seam metal, with the gables clad in brightly coloured cladding panels. The same panels are used to demark the pupil entrances on both sides.
The main hall is naturally ventilated. Tall window openings and north facing roof lights aim to maximise the amount of natural light in the space. A solar array on the south facing side of the roof provides much of the buildings electrical requirements.
