Background & Context
Start/End dates
Started work on site January 2003 with a year's design work previously. Build completed September 2005.
Type of project
New Build on existing site.
Case Study tags: learning spaces, new college durham, north-east england, new build, further education
What is it?
The College was previously on two sites. Buildings dated from 1950s to 1970s and were unfit for purpose. It was not possible to meet required standards of disabled access (in particular one of the libraries was not accessible to wheelchair users), maintenance costs were high and it was not possible to provide the desired standard of security. The main driver was however the educational case of creating a flexible and attractive learning environment.
The new campus was built on the larger of the two existing sites whilst the site was occupied. Moves between buildings were phased and no part of the site was untouched. The move had aspects of a merger since the two sites had been very separate with little staff movement between them.
The College is a 'mixed economy' institution and offers FE and HE level provision in an area that has one of the lowest progression rates into HE in the North East region (although this is not true of the College itself). The College has a primarily rural catchment that is also characterised by low rates of car and PC ownership.
The development is a full new campus for provision covering a wide range of vocational and academic qualifications at FE and HE level.
New College Durham wanted a campus of the 21st century that had to be 'aspirational'. The aim was not however to design a building that would win awards (although it was shortlisted for a RIBA award). The emphasis was on the activities that went on inside and how they were integrated. The Principal describes it as being built 'from the inside out'.
They wanted a campus environment in which students of all ages and levels of study feel comfortable. The campus is designed around 'malls'. They used the metaphor of shopping malls and airports as modern public spaces where learners would feel comfortable.
What happens in the space?
Spaces are designed for multiple uses e.g. the malls are circulation space, student social space, exhibition and event space. The training restaurant is used for online enrolment at the start of the year. The call centre real work environment doubles as a PC lab.
Areas are zoned to reflect vocational focus rather than segregated. Spaces for practical learning, including areas such as motor vehicle and construction, link directly off the malls making a statement about valuing all learners equally. The zoning has helped rationalise previously disparate areas that require the same services such as gas and food storage e.g., the life skills area for people with learning difficulties is next to the training kitchen.
There are no separate staff recreation areas and not even the Principal has a designated parking space.
Student work is displayed in the corridors to give a feel for the curriculum and to avoid students feeling 'lost' in a big building. Colour coding also aids those with a visual impairment and gives a sense of identity. The public can enter the malls to see drama performances and shop in the real work environments such as the hairdressing salon or travel shop. Services for students are also conveniently located on the mall by the main entrance.
The principle of creating a campus for a wide range of learners and valuing them all equally is embodied in the design.
Sustainability features prominently in the College estate strategy. The new build includes a range of environmentally friendly features such as:
- High thermal insulation and acoustic standards
- Minimum energy consumption
- Minimum water consumption and rain water harvesting
- Minimum C02 and greenhouse gas emissions
- Maximum use of daylight whilst minimising solar gain
The College however recognises that sustainability is about more than good building design and has a comprehensive sustainability strategy covering:
- Ethics and values
- Institutional policy, practice and governance
- Building and Estates design and efficient running
- Effective use of resources
- Leadership and management
- Staff development
- Curriculum development
- Health
- Procurement and Fair Trade
- Engagement with employers
- Engagement with local community groups
New College Durham instigated a Value Engineering approach when a 'guaranteed maximum price' estimate came out significantly higher than expected and believes they got a lot of benefit from this. They reduced suggested desk sizes and furniture specifications for short stay open access IT areas. In other areas they increased costs to make future savings e.g. spray mixer taps cost only £4k more but will save on water bills.
Finance
Funding Sources
£12 million from LSC; funds from disposal of one site; bank loan, reserves.
Cost of Project
Total £36 million of which £27 million building cost.
Technology
The emphasis with technology is to provide a robust infrastructure that can allow the College to move forward on a number of fronts. The infrastructure includes wireless networking throughout and VOIP. Technology is now all pervasive and any room can be a computer room.
The College is investing heavily in ILT staff development from induction of new staff to refresher courses with ILT featuring in the annual staff development week. They are however wary of pushing ahead too quickly with new technologies that have a significant learning curve for staff and have not, for example, adopted interactive whiteboards to any great extent although they are experimenting with technologies such as voting systems and podcasting.
The emphasis is strongly on better learning and teaching rather than technology for its own sake and the College is about to create a senior level post of Head of e-Learning and Learning Technology to provide leadership in this area. Its approach is exemplified in the review of material on the VLE to move it beyond being a repository for power point slides. The College has identified pockets of enthusiasm for e-learning in areas such as catering and hairdressing.
The College describes itself as having a 'pragmatic' view towards ILT with the confidence that the infrastructure will allow them to go as far as they like. The job now is to understand how best to use the capacity they have. The College offers some remote access and online services and notes that HE level learners are much more amenable than FE to using web services. They do not believe that remote access capability will be a significant enabler for FE provision until more services can be provided via mobile phones and digital TV.
New College Durham has found that the technology in the new build has enabled it to make significant changes to its business processes. Their approach to business systems is similar to that with regard to learning technologies in that they do not want to find themselves as early adopters beta testing systems. They describe themselves as 'enthusiastic but cautious' about the opportunities afforded but were nonetheless amongst the first FE colleges to adopt a full Records Management system. They try to take a whole College view of business processes and to base them around technology where possible. They now have online enrolment on campus, computerised timetabling and computerised attendance registers.
The first step towards computerising attendance registers was not a success as it relied on staff completing records that were then fed into an IT system and loss and errors occurred. The College realised it had been a mistake to think that staff would be too technology adverse and they should have taken more of a leap so they moved to a system where tutors fill in records online in the classroom and this is working well.
They note that staff have to be very confident of the infrastructure to move from paper.
IT infastructure was kept out of the main contract with the architects. Desktop and network support has been outsourced to Fujitsu. Staff turnover was a factor in deciding to outsource but application development and support has been retained in-house as this is 'too close to the core business'. Hardware procurement was excluded from the outsourcing contract as the College believes it got a better deal by separating the two. Most equipment such as servers and end user equipment is leased. The planned replacement cycle is:
Servers - 5 years
Laptops - 5 years
PCs - 4 years
There is a rolling programme of replacement rather than a 'big bang' approach.
Adding Value
The College believes that the pervasiveness of technology and the integration of systems makes the partnership between the College and its staff and students more direct. The downside is of course that so much of it is now mission critical should it ever fail.
The Assistant Director of IT and Purchasing notes that his role used to be firefighting whereas now it is finding ways to enable people to do the new things they want to do.
The CCTV with 360o cameras has been very successful in creating a secure environment and protecting vulnerable students e.g., tracing students with learning difficulties if they become lost. It has also helped reduce the 'iterative theft' of PCs whereby thieves start with a mouse then take the keyboard and so on.
Top Tips
A project of this scale and complexity requires careful planning and total commitment both to the project itself and to the needs of the students and staff who will be studying during the construction period.
The Senior Management Team needs to play an active role, leading staff and taking decisions which can often be difficult and have long term implications. Design and construction teams will do their part but the College as client must be in a central position.
Be realistic about how long the design stage takes and how much senior management time it takes up. Make sure you allow enough time for it. You only get one chance and it's worth the effort to get it right up front.
The longer you take on the actual build the more difficult it is to control costs and manage change requests.
Spend as much time evaluating and negotiating on loan options as you do on choosing an architect. Your existing bank may not offer the best deal. Managing cash flow is critical.
Make sure your business is in good shape before you go into this.
Consider third party project management. You can't be an expert in everything. This was a difficult decision for New College Durham Governors but the amount spent was far less than the cost of getting it wrong.
Haggle and double-check. Value engineering was something that New College Durham instigated themselves. They checked on building work and required the builders to relay a concrete floor when it was evident it had been laid at the wrong temperature just in case this caused problems in future.
Build in maximum flexibility to respond to changing needs.
Think about the next 20 years and be prepared to live with every decision you make.
New College Durham took detailed photos at every stage of the build so that if anything goes wrong in future they have a record of the location of all underground pipes etc.
Keep a tight rein on change control and keep good documentation. All changes above a certain level required the Principal's approval.
Lessons Learned
The College initially considered a proposal that was part refurbishment and part new build which added to the time. After evaluating all options, a total new build was decided.
It is difficult for academic staff to create a vision when they are fully engaged in day to day activity. They incline to do what they already do in better surroundings. The opportunity to challenge what is taught and how could be missed. In the early planning stages of the project, New College Durham ended up with a 'Christmas List; that added substantially to their existing footprint whereas the final design reduced it by 25%. Although the involvement of staff at all levels is essential, and teaching staff, the College needs an overall vision into which these separate units can integrate.
People have difficulty understanding plans and they can't visualise what the build will look like. They find it very hard to think in 3D and plan things like services in real work environments.
Post Occupancy: Changes Made As A Result Of Feedback
They haven't made any changes yet as this is a prototype set up to get feedback for the second phase in a new build.
So far changes have been due to changes in the curriculum, student feedback and changes in the pattern of enrolment. e.g., the space devoted to Beauty Therapy was increased as the build was going up.
The revolving front doors have been replaced. The College had doubts about them from the start although the design team thought them feasible based on a comparison with airport throughput.
Case study written early 2007.
