Gloucestershire College relocated their existing Forest of Dean campus to provide an exemplar new, highly sustainable facility for over 16s. The college required flexible, futureproof facilities that could be shared by students and the community, with the 7,200m² campus acting as the catalyst for the Cinderford Northern Quarter development. The college required the new campus to provide facilities for not only A-Level courses, but also vocational courses such as beauty, catering, and teacher training.
To fully understand the project, we organised and ran stakeholder workshops and consultations with students, parents, and the community to gather ideas. The building was carefully delivered to a tight budget with structured collaboration throughout the process, working with the contractor and stakeholders to ensure the budget was spent appropriately.
The building is situated on a site of national ecological importance populated by bats, newts, and dormice. This meant that every stage of development needed to be extremely sensitive to the surroundings and, through targeted consultation and working with ecologists, we reduced the ecological impact to the site.
“I am really proud of the new college. Roberts Limbrick have delivered an exciting building that will bring the very best post-16 education facilities to the Forest of Dean”
The design consists of three distinct but complementary elements which include a vocational training college, a sixth form centre and a central hub providing dining, social and teaching functions for the college and the wider community.
The building design utilises the existing lake for passive heating and cooling methods, is orientated to provide high levels of natural light and uses the existing site contours to minimise the impact of the facility on the landscape. It incorporates brown and green roofs to provide habitats for wildlife along with grey water and rainwater harvesting.
