Hurlford Primary School

Brief
The development of enhanced accommodation for the school to include; new dining facilities, extended and refurbished toilets, internal refurbishment to the early childhood area and external fabric works.   Wylie Shanks Architects were engaged to take forward an existing East Ayrshire Council design as executive architects and contract administrator and so deliver the project from tender through to completion on site.

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Project Description
Built in 1905 the red sandstone and traditionally slated school is B Listed.  The project involved forming a lower ground floor extension to the existing school building to include new school kitchen, dining hall, pupil toilets and accompanying lift and stair access between the floors. The project also included for ground floor alterations to form new Nursery accommodation and provide accessible toilets and an accessible entrance to the building including an external platform lift.  Extensive external fabric repairs to the school and boundary wall were also incorporated.

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The project scope was further extended to include a wider upgrade to all of the remaining classrooms including new fixtures and fittings as well as general decoration and new heating.

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The extensive rooflights to the double height central gym space were also replaced and the existing timber handrails and decorative exposed roof trusses cleaned and varnished to enhance the main feature space of the school.

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Site Conditions
The extension is located on the East elevation of the existing school building in the playground that is at basement level in relation the existing ground floor of the school.  The extension links through to the existing basement level that formerly housed the existing school toilets but previously had no internal access to the rest of the building.

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The old dining hall had been previously demolished by the client allowing the project to upgrade and extend the playground areas.  The external works included adjusted staff car parking and the installation of new fencing, trees, turf and raised beds to encourage the children.

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Specialist features
An existing building of this age does not readily lend itself to level access, however, as part of the project a new external lift was included to the South entrance providing wheelchair access for the first time to the school building.  An internal lift is also included to allow full and easy access between the ground floor and the new lower ground floor extension.

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Added Value
As part of the project an extensive fabric repairs exercise was carried out including, roof repairs, stonework repairs and re-pointing. Full window and rooflight replacement to improve the fabric performance of the existing structure was also undertaken to help improve the thermal performance of the school.  Our accredited conservation team readily assisted and serviced this aspect of the project.

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Two new openings formed in the existing wall to the North provided level access between all 3 playgrounds North, East and West which were previously only accessible via steps.  Consultation with the Council’s Accessibility Advisor was required to maximise the opportunities within the context of the listed building