Gresham’s School Britten Building
A multi-award winning £3.25million project to provide a new music school and sixth form building at the prestigious Gresham’s School in Holt, North Norfolk
The two-storey Gresham’s School Britten Building development includes classrooms, music practice rooms, a recording studio, a 140 seat auditorium that will be used as a Sixth Form lecture theatre as well as performing space, cafeteria and social spaces for pupils. The scheme provides an educational environment suitable to deliver a modern music and Sixth Form academic curriculum, creating inspirational spaces for the pupils to learn and the staff to teach.
Carefully selected components, materials and refined construction detailing combine to achieve acoustic standards, minimise the energy requirements, achieving lower running costs, reduced maintenance requirements and optimised lifecycle costs.
Successes like these reinforce our belief that it is possible to design sustainable, attractive buildings and spaces for Education that combine energy efficiency with high performing environments offering great value for money – within a realistic, mainstream budget.
The new building improves the visual connections through to the nearby Auden theatre, whilst offering a new courtyard and processional route to the buildings from the south, via a brick colonnade. All internal spaces are arranged to provide good levels of natural light, pleasant views as well as serving a constant reminder of the buildings purpose and essence. Interiors boast particularly high acoustic performance standards. The building is fully DDA compliant, with level entry throughout and an access lift meaning that the building can be enjoyed by all.
The massing and scale of the new building offers the school significant facilities whilst maintaining a close relationship to the surrounding buildings. The main materials for the external cladding are mixed-red brick and timber, creating a contemporary feel that is also in keeping with the surroundings.
Strategically built on an existing brown field site, the scheme takes maximum advantage of sunlight, using PV panels and maximising natural daylight.