Brookside Preschool

Brookside Pre-School

This project was undertaken for Suffolk County Council and the building was installed in September 2010.

Planning permission was obtained in May 2010. A JCT contract was awarded under Design and Build. An existing 35 year old modular building was demolished and replaced with a 9.6m x 18.0m bespoke modular building.

To improve the aesthetics, the building was clad in Siberian Larch with a mixture of vertical and horizontal Larch panels fitted. Our suggestion of small feature coloured windows was accepted and has proved very successful; these windows throw rainbow effect colours onto the floor area from sunshine and are additional to our standard double glazed powder coated aluminium windows.

A suspended ceiling was fitted and the main activity room was fitted with a sliding partition so that the room could be divided from time to time for use by both older and younger children sharing one activity session.

Our air conditioning system provides both the required heating and cooling for the building and achieves 17% renewable energy. The external condensers for the system are protected by powder coated cages on the school grounds side of the building that is not accessed by the children and one condenser that is fitted within the play area of the Primary school is encased in a Siberian wood finished bee hive effect cabinet.

The external activity area is limited and is fenced between the Pre-School and Primary School. Our recommendation that the main entrance be extended to provide an activity/outside teaching area with canopy above was adopted. This veranda area comprises non-slip wood flooring with half height picket fencing for security and powder coated steel canopy which matches the doors and windows with UV protection polycarbonate above. The children are able to safely play within this area whatever the weather and it is proving very successful. We recommended that the remaining external play area be divided between a grassed section and an all weather soft play area together with a stand alone wooden constructed sand pit with roof above. The sand is protected when not in use by wooden benching that slides away for seating when play commences.

The success of the new building is demonstrated by the additional number of children now attending the pre-school and naturally the Headmaster of the Gusford Primary School is delighted with the increased numbers of children that will transfer from pre- school to primary.