Anne-Marie Nicholson, group director of PRP’s specialist housing team, said: “This is a great result for our client, the RNIB and for all partners involved. This project is unique. No other such vision school or home exists in the UK and the architecture has been carefully designed to provide a level of care previously unseen for young people with sight problems and additional physical and complex learning difficulties.
“For over two years, we have worked with the young people, the staff and practitioners to gain an understanding of how a young person with complex needs interacts with the built environment and how our design can help to support, stimulate and educate them,” continued Nicholson.
The 32,000m2 campus in Ash Green, Coventry, developed from RNIB Rushton, will provide a full time home for 60 young people and a school for up to 70 young people between the ages of 11 and 19. The school is designed to enable pupils to be class-based but also offers a number of specialist areas including multi-sensory environments, a music therapy suite and provision for physiotherapy. There will be a stand-alone water therapy centre with full size swimming pool and separate hydrotherapy pool, which will also be used by the pupils of the neighbouring Exhall Grange School.
The children’s home will be arranged as a series of ten individual single-storey houses, each with six bedrooms and direct access to private gardens. Importantly, each child will have their own bedroom, including a shared assisted bathroom between two – a level of detail testament to the enhanced standard of care that RNIB is seeking to provide to its young people. All of the clusters are linked by a safe and protected internal street which runs from the entrance of the home to the children’s play park and a proposed ‘village green’.
Architecturally, PRP has taken particular care to use planes of material to form both wall and roof, using a mixed pallet of materials. PRP is using colour, texture, light, sound and varying acoustics –sensory clues – to help the children navigate and understand their environment. Particular consideration has been made in PRP’s landscape design – the site will provide different environments and habitats, such as trees with different types of bark, for the children to explore in a safe and protected environment.
Nicholson added, “The emotional, social and physical disabilities of RNIB’s young people, in addition to a sight problem, means that the young people have tended to find it difficult to function well in an ordinary domestic environment. We really want the buildings and spaces that we’ve designed to become a stimulating, yet safe, environment that allows them to function in as natural a way as possible.”
PRP’s design includes water efficient appliances, including low flush WC cisterns and spray taps. The buildings have been designed to be energy efficient and will be thermally insulated to levels above Building Regulations requirements. Shading devices, canopies and large roof overhangs have also been used to prevent excessive solar gains, particularly where large areas of glazing are used. An Energy Centre will house a CHP unit which it is hoped will generate at least 25% of renewable energy for the entire site.
Brenda Smith, head of care at RNIB, commented: “PRP has delivered a design which has exceeded our initial expectations. Their whole design is based on social inclusion and accessibility specifically for the young people living here, which is precisely what we wanted to create. This project will enable us to provide a safe environment for the children in the first instance but also for the staff who will be working 24 hours a day, every day of the year.”
PRP Project Services has been appointed project managers for the scheme and Shepherd will be constructing the new school and care home whilst the existing facilities remain in operation, thus requiring a carefully planned, phased development. Construction is due to start in mid April 2008 and the project aims to be fully completed by Autumn 2010.
