Warwickshire College

This £19m project involved the construction of a state of the art new college facility, built in only 17 months and completed in July 2010.

Rodgers Leask was employed from concept to completion of the project, with works including site investigation, external works, drainage design and structural design. There were also party wall issues along a boundary with network rail.

The building included the following:

• A £6.3m power academy
• 150-seater multi-purpose hall
• 1,000 square metres of engineering space
• 1,200 square metres of conferencing and business facilities
• 1,000 square metres of performance and dance facilities
• 850 square metres of purpose built art, design and craft workshops
• 1,050 square metres of construction training facilities
• All weather playing pitches

The structure comprises of multi-storey steel frame with a unique ‘eyelash’ style curved roof to provide natural light to the performing arts facilities. Upper floors were constructed using metal profiled decking with the external walls clad with a mixture of masonry and metal sheeting. Traditional pad foundations were used to support the structure, but due to the depth of made ground on the site, a raft was used to support the external walls.

The project also included a number of sustainable technologies including a wind turbine, photovoltaic cells, solar water heating and a combined heat and power plant.

Based upon a flood risk assessment provided by Rodgers Leask, we designed a full strategy encompassing on site attenuation to limit flows off site. Rodgers Leask also facilitated the diversion of an existing sewer running across the site.