Yorkon News Archives

20/06/2001 – Modular Building - echoing a school's teaching philosophy through design

Yorkon's steel-framed modular building system has been used to provide new teaching accommodation for a primary school in the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

The £600,000 two-storey scheme at Handsworth Primary School in east London comprises four general classrooms and two IT suites. It has a number of attractive design features, including cedar board cladding, brise soleil sunshading to the front elevation, an aluminium pitched roof and large glazed roof lights to increase the amount of natural light inside the building.

Yorkon, a subsidiary of Portakabin, was also responsible for the creation of a quiet garden area, playground and car park, as well as fitting out of the building.

“The new building really does echo the philosophy of this school”, said Lillian Mumme, Head of Handsworth Primary School. “It has created an attractive, safe and secure teaching environment, which is very important at primary school level. Learning is at its best where the children have one teacher in an enclosed area. This allows them to feel comfortable and develop ownership of their space.”

She added, “Modular construction is very technically advanced and enabled us to extend the school on a constrained and dense site. Aesthetically, the new building is very pleasing and lets in lots of natural light.”

The advantages of modular building over traditional site-based construction methods are proven. By applying standardisation and pre-assembly to the building process, improved quality and cost control, minimal disruption to teaching, flexibility in design and time savings of up to 50 per cent are achieved to the benefit of the schools and their pupils.