Providing better education facilities and skills is a priority for the City of Cardiff Council. The new school provides a learning space for 1,200 secondary students and 300 sixth-formers. The school consists of three separate, but closely linked, two storey buildings built around a publicly accessible plaza. The first being the main teaching block for secondary students, the second catering for sixth form students, and the third a sports block. The open-plan design supports the desire to encourage community engagement within the school.
Delivered in a short period of time, with a condensed preconstruction and construction period, it is the fastest that Willmott Dixon have delivered a scheme of this size. In addition, the construction of the school adopted elements of MMC which included SFS system, precast lift shafts, precast starts, panelised elements of the façade and a standardised grid for the structural frame.
In addition, the project delivered significant community benefits, this included over 375 apprentice weeks, 25 trainees, 244 weeks of work experience, 300 weeks of employment for the long-term unemployed, and over 4,575 pupil interactions. The site was a considerate constructors ultra-site, the first in Wales.
The success of the project can largely be attributed the strong collaborative relationship developed with the customer, the headteacher and teaching staff.
Key achievements
- Use of MMC to deliver a condensed preconstruction and construction programme
- Use of MMC to deliver a condensed preconstruction and construction programme
- Significant community benefits, that provided over 300 weeks of employment for local long term unemployed people, helping change lives in a deprived area of the city
