Law Building, New College Pontefract.

New College, Pontefract required an extension to their LAW education facility.  The Client required 4 new classrooms with 30 computers in each classroom; a games room for students; and staffroom; a new fire escape route; and a new faith room and modifications to upgrade the capacity of their server room.

The client’s exact needs were fine-tuned during a series of design meetings and workshops to ensure the proposed scheme met their teaching needs.

Due to the increased student capacity of the building, an instruction was issued to convert the existing admin office to provide 10 new toilets and a cleaner’s cupboard.  This necessitated the construction of a new external drainage connection from the new toilets to the Yorkshire Water sewer in the main road.  (This was approximately 100m in length).  All additional works were completed in the contract period.

Prior to undertaking the RIBA Stage 4 design works, NU undertook a detailed site investigation to assess the ground conditions and to determine the structural details of the existing building.  Working with the Design Team and the specialist subcontractors, the information was utilised to design a new extension to complement the existing building.

The new extension comprised of:-

• Piled foundations with pile caps and ground-beams
• A new steel frame which was tied into the existing steel structure.  The existing roof purlins were surveyed to ensure the new purlins aligned to allow the roof profile to be replicated.
• Concrete slabs to ground floor and 1st floor.
• Masonry walls, stone string course and window head details to match the existing LAW Building.
• Stripping back the existing roof and replacing with new composite insulation sheets and slates to match the existing.
• New internal fire compartment walls with acoustic performance.
• New high efficiency lighting and AC to conform to SBEM requirements.
• New data cabinets and full data cabling installation to facilitate the College’s IT requirements.
• Acoustics have been considered in every aspect of design including walls, doors, steel frame to reduce reverberation and ironmongery.
• Fire stopping, to all wall and floor penetrations including a completion survey to validate the works.
• A new foul drain connection into Park Lane with coordination with Yorkshire Water, Wakefield Highways and Wakefield Building Control.  This was installed to provide new drainage for the new LAW Building toilets.  For potential future expansion, the last section of the drainage was increased form 150mm to 225mm to minimise the need for future road crossings.  The works we completed in one week.  With the assistance of the college, the works were notified to the residents, and they were kept up to date with the road closures and the traffic diversions. 
• The original scheme left an unused section of ground approximately 600mm wide between the gable end of the new extension and an existing retaining wall.  NU recommended utilising the space more effectively and increased the size of the building by 500mm and eradicated the dead space.  This provided larger teaching spaces for the College.
• As the classrooms were being used as computer labs, NU were concerned about radiators clashing with the room layouts.  After carrying out a survey on the current power usage in the existing building, it was determined that there was sufficient power to allow a full AC system for the extension.