Mace’s Develop business, part of the international consultancy and construction company, has completed the sale of part of its student accommodation portfolio to Ares Generation, a joint venture between a fund managed by the Real Estate Group of Ares Management Corporation (“Ares”) and Generation Partners LLP (“Generation”). This is the first acquisition of student accommodation in the UK for the Ares Generation joint venture.

The assets sold include the Depot in Exeter and West Wing in Cardiff, totalling 1,359 student beds provided in a wide range of formats from 12-bed cluster rooms through to duplex studios and 1-bed flats.

The buildings were completed in phases over the past 18 months with the final phase at Exeter being delivered by Mace’s construction division through a Construction Management arrangement supported by Mace’s local Exeter consultancy team.

Having recently announced achieving net zero carbon in 2020, Mace will use this boost to its balance sheet to continue to invest in and deliver sustainable, carbon neutral projects.

As a developer, Mace has recently completed construction on the final phase of Greenwich Square, a mixed-use scheme in London, offering 686 new residential homes, together with new community, retail and leisure facilities. In 2020, Mace gained planning approval for a £500m regeneration of Stevenage Town Centre.

Craig McPhail of Montagu Evans advised Mace Develop in the transaction.

Richard Bienfait, Chief Financial Officer of Mace, said:

“We are very proud to have developed two high quality student accommodation facilities in the heart of the Russell Group university cities of Cardiff and Exeter. We are delighted to have secured a great value transaction with Ares and Generation. This transaction allows Mace Develop to focus on other new and exciting opportunities one of which is the regeneration of Stevenage Town Centre.”

Wilson Lamont, Partner and Co-Head of European Real Estate Equity at Ares and Alan Artus, Co-Founder of Generation Partners LLP commented:

“We are delighted to have concluded this transaction with Mace to acquire two high-quality buildings in the first transaction undertaken by the Ares Generation joint venture.”

A new project in Madagascar is rethinking the building blocks of education – using 3D printing to create new schools.

Non-profit organisation Thinking Huts has partnered with architectural design agency Studio Mortazavi to create the world’s first 3D-printed school on the campus of a university in Fianarantsoa, Madagascar. It is aiming to tackle the shortage of educational infrastructure which in many countries contributes to fewer children getting a good education.

Using technology developed by Finnish company Hyperion Robotics, the school will be built using 3D-printed walls and locally-sourced materials for the doors, roof and windows. Members of the local community will then be taught how to replicate the process to build schools for the future.

In this way, a new school can be built in under a week, and with less of an environmental cost than traditional concrete-based construction. The 3D-printed buildings use less concrete than other methods and the 3D cement mixture also emits less carbon dioxide compared to traditional concrete, Thinking Huts claims.

The design allows for individual pods to be joined together in a beehive-like structure, and means schools can be easily expanded. The Madagascan pilot project also features vertical farms in the walls, and solar panels.

Widening access to education

An absence of buildings to deliver education from is a significant hurdle in many countries, particularly in areas lacking skilled labour and resources for building. By using the technology to build schools, Thinking Huts is seeking to widen access to education – something which will become particularly important post-pandemic.

As part of work identifying promising technology use cases to combat COVID, The Boston Consulting Group recently used contextual AI to analyze more than 150 million English language media articles from 30 countries published between December 2019 to May 2020.

The result is a compendium of hundreds of technology use cases. It more than triples the number of solutions, providing better visibility into the diverse uses of technology for the COVID-19 response.

UNICEF and other organisations have warned of a learning crisis exacerbated by the virus, with 1.6 billion children across the world at danger of falling behind because of school closures aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19.

So, getting children back in the classroom as soon as is safely possible will be vital to continuing their education, particularly for those with limited access to the internet and personal learning devices.

Printing the future?

The process of 3D printing, which is also known as additive manufacturing, uses a digital file to build solid objects layer by layer – meaning there is less waste compared to traditional methods, which often use moulds or hollowed out materials.

3D printing has revolutionised manufacturing processes, enabling mass customization, creating novel visual forms not previously possible and creating new opportunities to increase the circularity of products.

The machines are increasingly used in the production of everything from consumer goods such as sunglasses to industrial items such as car parts. In education, 3D modelling can be used to bring educational concepts to life and help build practical skills, such as coding.

In Mexico, it has been used to build a neighbourhood of 46-square-metre homes in Tabasco. The houses – consisting of a kitchen, living room, bathroom and two bedrooms – will be made available to some of the state’s poorest families, many of who earn just $3 a day.

The technology’s relatively easy portability and low cost has also proved vital in disaster relief. When Nepal was hit by an earthquake in 2015, a 3D printer perched on a Land Rover was used to help fix water pipes flown in as part of a relief effort, the Guardian reported.

3D printing is also being successfully used in the field of medicine. In Italy, start-up Issinova 3D-printed ventilator valves for COVID-19 patients when a hospital in the badly-hit region of Lombardy ran out of supplies. More widely, 3D printing could prove invaluable in making personalized implants and devices for patients.

Source: World Economic Forum

The scheme in Ebbsfleet Garden City to be one of Kent’s largest-ever educational facilities. The Alkerden CoE Academy will be one of Kent’s largest educational campuses when it opens in 2023.

Lee Evans Partnership has been given the green light for a new education campus in Ebbsfleet Garden City, Kent.

Occupying an 11.1ha site, the 2,200-place Alkerden CoE Academy campus will be one of Kent’s largest educational facilities.

The proposals for landowner and developer Henley Camland will see a nursery, primary school and secondary school built at the emerging town, which is situated on former industrial land by the Thames estuary.

The scheme also includes a community sports centre with outdoor pitches, a sports hall, a dance studio, fitness suite and cafe with enough space to support 500 visitors at any one time.

The planning officer’s report described the scheme’s design as “exemplary”, calling the architecture “carefully considered, richly referencing local colours, textures and agricultural built forms”.

It added that it “balances the security and safeguarding needs of a modern school with the ambition to use the buildings to open up visual connections with the community and frame surrounding streets”.

Last month, architect BPTW was given the go-ahead for 532-home plans to build a series of terraced houses and apartment blocks in Ebbsfleet Garden City.

Lee Evans Partnership’s green light follows the completion of its designs for the 1,105-place Simon Langton Girls’ Grammar school, also in Kent, earlier this year.

The school, which required the flattening of the school’s former art deco premises which were built in the early 1950s, was part of the government’s £4.4bn Priority Schools Building Programme 2.

Source: Building Design

By Stuart Letley, Director, Chartered Safety & Health Practitioner, Clear Safety.

According to research by Zurich Municipal, two-thirds of schools in England are not adequately prepared for a fire and there is little consistency in the approach to fire risk management amongst schools. With more than 1,000 fires in school premises every year costing an average of £2.8 million for more significant incidents, not to mention major disruption to the educational continuity of children, clearly fire protection will feature highly on schools’ health and safety agenda.
But while schools will undoubtedly be aware of the need to address fire protection, the fact that so many fires are still happening poses the question; are mistakes being made? Are risk assessments and their actions fully understood by site managers? And if so, what are the common misunderstandings?
Essential actions
Simply going through the motions of completing a fire risk assessment does not ensure a school is compliant. Key staff need to familiarize themselves with the findings and make a simple, prioritised plan to address the recommendations. Any competent fire risk assessment will include a rating of the risk level and actions will be a assigned a priority level. However, there are often lots of practical complexities (such as budgetary logistical considerations) as to why a school cannot simply address the actions in order of ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’ priority ratings. This leaves schools with a dilemma; How do they become compliant within the budget that is actually available? Are they doing enough? Or are they being too risk averse? A sensible balance needs to be struck and this is where an understanding of a ‘reasonable and proportionate’ response is essential. For example, an assessor will often state ‘recommend doors are inspected and, where not compliant, replaced’. Or another favourite is ‘check and replace all intumescent strips on fire doors’. While this is informed and appropriate advice it must also be considered that many schools have hundreds of doors and at a cost of nearly £2-3k each, it is not reasonable to expect every single one to be ‘perfect’. Similarly, ‘compartmentation and fire stopping’ and following through on recommendations to investigate these areas of the building for fire-rated materials can involve expensive investigations carried out by a building surveyor in order to identify if areas are sufficiently compartmentalised. But is this a reasonable expectation?
The risk assessment may be overwhelming, identifying a plethora of issues that require improvement and which will all contribute to enhanced fire protection, but in reality how can a school site achieve 100% ‘compliance’ within the budget that is available? The legislation governing health and safety compliance allows for ‘reasonability’. But how can a school interpret what is reasonable in order to make the right decisions and spend money in the right areas to the greatest effect, without the potential of being exposed to unacceptable risk or even prosecution?

Completed works may not equal compliance
Even when improvement works are undertaken, how can a school be confident that they are to the correct specification, without running up further costs to fund another independent risk assessment? School staff may not necessarily be fully conversant with what a robust evidential trail looks like for the completion of these works and so will not know what to ask for.
A risk assessment will provide a comprehensive overview of the site but some of the recommendations will require specialist knowledge to interpret the level of action required.  Equally, not all findings can be logistically actioned, so what should the school do to demonstrate a commitment to compliance? Are there any additional control measures that the school should be introducing to mitigate the risk for instance?
Engaging contractors
When addressing the need to undertake any essential remedial works, the school needs to understand the full financial ramifications.
But how does the school know what constitutes a fair and reasonable estimate?
In situations where a school provides a contractor with the fire risk assessment and asks for an estimate of the works required, a lot of trust is placed in the contractor. Are they actually helping to identify the essential works whilst also looking after the school budget, as opposed to putting their own interests first? Do they have the necessary knowledge to complete the works that will help with site compliance?
Similarly, without the requisite specialist knowledge, how can a school advise the contractor on what needs to be done and what does not need to be done? And, if after engaging a contractor to undertake specific actions, an inspector deems the school to still be non-compliant, what happens then?
Navigating the school through an improvement programme in response to a fire risk assessment is complex, time-consuming and fraught with the potential for error and poor decisions around spending budgets. Engaging a specialist company that is 100% impartial and independent – i.e., not incentivised by the amount of expenditure on remedial works and always has the school’s best interests at heart – is the solution. Clear Safety can manage the entire programme for a school, from undertaking the fire risk assessment, through to advice on the works required, collating evidence of all completed work before payments are made and achieving compliance. Alternatively, we can work with an existing risk assessment, engaging with contractors and interpreting the findings on behalf of the school. Clear Safety has the requisite knowledge and extensive experience to help your school achieve compliance, whilst minimising cost!

Find out more by visiting the website, email info@clearsafety.co.uk or call 01303 684 001.

www.clearsafety.co.uk

A Sheffield school has built a state of the art eco-classroom, thought to be one of the first in Yorkshire, made to be fully sustainable and located on the edge of the school immersed in nature.

With a stunning modern design, the £50,000 classroom is made exclusively of wood and uses aluminium for the windows, ensuring it regulates temperature well, requiring very little need for electricity.

Four years in the making, parents helped Bradfield Dungworth Primary School in securing the funds to go ahead as they attempted to turn the school’s footprint green.

Currently purposed for a quiet space for students of key workers who are in school, and a place for teachers who need to complete virtual learning, the classroom couldn’t have come at a better time.

Bradfield Dungworth Primary School forms part of Peak Edge Trust a multi-academy trust established in 2019 located in north west Sheffield.

The Trust works alongside MAC Construction Consultants, which was appointed on the four-week project to provide specialist Cost Management, Quantity Survey and Safety, Health and Environmental services.

Paul Booth, Building Surveyor at MAC Construction Consultants said: “We’re delighted to have been involved in this project that will deliver much needed resources and facilities for the pupils in the local area, and help to ensure the long term sustainability of the school building.

Headteacher Helen Adams said: “We’re a small rural school on the outskirts of Sheffield, lucky enough to be surrounded by beautiful views.

“When we started this project, we had only about 100 pupils, now we have 122.”

“The community is like a family.

“We were told that our mobile classroom was no longer fit for purpose – with another winter, the roof would have caved in.

“It wasn’t intended to be there long term, but to obtain enough funds is a difficult challenge.

“Where we are, we see so much nature and the need to protect the environment, so parents and the school decided it was what we needed.

“The fundraising couldn’t have been done without the hard work of the parents and all those who helped with fundraising.

“But it has all been so worth it – our children had a competition to name it, with nature being the entire theme.

“We named it the Burrow, and seeing our children already to enjoy it and be able to connect with nature is brilliant.

“With it being Children’s Mental Health awareness week, these spaces for children are more important that ever.

“The quiet, the connection to nature – it’s really good for the children who might be stressed by the pandemic.”

Source: YorkshireLive