Schools Estate Planning - Manchester BSF | with Aedas | Balfour Beatty | Manchester City Council
A series of feasibilities examined Manchester’s secondary school estate to assist the city in prioritising work for the OBC and SBC stages of its £160M+ BSF programme. Emergent themes included the provision of flexible teaching space, clarity of circulation, refresh of image and impact on the community, and ensuring continuity by careful site planning.
This was followed by an investigation into generic solutions for the strategic design of school layouts and “kit of parts” components. Component design reports led to a decision matrix and on to framework specification solutions, later rolled out across projects.
Later feasibility schemes for Academies and wave 4 schools and SEN were evaluated against criteria including compactness, clarity, access, image and identity, external space optimisation, and location to ensure continuity.
Adopting the latest pedagogy in learning spaces led to the idea of the ‘Flexible Learning Zone’ (FLZ). These formed home bases for year groups, complete with toilets, food and drink, staffing, lockers and storage, and with flexibility in subdivision potential.
