King Edward VI Grammar School – Art Block

This million pound building project at King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford for a new Art Block was secured in open tender and involved BREEAM conditions and a restricted working area in the centre of a busy secondary school.

Working alongside architects John Finch Partnership, A W Hardy & Co Limited will begin a two-storey addition to the secondary school. The contract period began in October 2013 and was completed the following July, providing purpose-built art-rooms and teaching facilities attached to the existing school building.

The scheme utilised a steel-frame with concrete floors, incorporating glulam structural posts with exposed glulam rafters internally. The external envelope comprised a brick cavity walls with mainly slate pitched roofs; internally there is separate staircase access to the first floor, although connecting corridors to the existing school building at both floor levels were also built-into the scheme.

Formerly an old court-yard area, the new Art Block development incorporated a major face-lift to the surrounding area with some 700-plus square metres of external paving being installed between the new and existing buildings including steps, ramps and bollard lighting to complete the planned replacement scheme.