Yorkon News Archives

30/08/2006 – Yorkon Hands Over £3M Adult Education Centre in Lewisham On Time and On Budget

Award-winning off-site construction specialists and Portakabin subsidiary, Yorkon, has handed over a new £3m adult education centre in Lewisham, just 13 weeks after arrival of the building modules on site.

The three-storey scheme for Lewisham Council was delivered on time and on budget, regenerating a brownfield site and providing a range of facilities for the local community.

Designed by Cartwright Pickard Architects and project managed by Mace, the centre has a contemporary design with timber solar shading to screen the windows on the south elevation, western red cedar cladding to bring texture and warmth, and slate grey panels to add further interest to the building envelope.

Yorkon manufactured the building off-site in York and craned 39 steel-framed modules into position in less than a week ready for the final stages of fitting out, significantly reducing the programme time and guaranteeing the quality of construction.

Facilities at the Granville Park Centre include a food studies laboratory, workrooms for art, woodwork, upholstery and metalwork, an IT suite, general classrooms, and offices. The building also has a crèche and an outdoor play area for children.

Commenting on the project, Jackie Warnes, Centre Manager at Granville Park, said, “We are very happy with the new facility. It is light and airy and provides a very pleasant environment for both staff and students. The building has exceeded our expectations.”

Councillor Chris Best, Cabinet Member for Culture at Lewisham Council, said, “The state-of-the-art adult education centre at Granville Park has provided the area with a valuable local resource that is now enabling many local people to enrich their lives. The use of off-site construction has meant the project was completed much more quickly and has satisfied our requirements for a high quality community facility.”

David Johnson, Director and General Manager of Yorkon, added, “This was a challenging site. The off-site method overcame the issue of restricted access and the building is constructed on split levels with retaining walls to accommodate the slope of the site. We also achieved a short programme time to allow the Council to provide community services from the centre as early as possible.”

Yorkon has a long history of delivering education buildings, from complete multi-storey schools to classroom extensions, and has recently launched a range of new architectural options to offer greater design flexibility, including curved modular buildings, different glazing configurations and a variety of finishes for the external envelope.

Editor’s Notes

Yorkon’s award-winning building system is an efficient alternative to traditional site- based construction. Benefits include:

Safety improved by up to 46 per cent
Shorter programme times for earlier occupation
Less disruption to the local community during construction
Less risk – 96 per cent of Yorkon projects have been completed on time and 94 per cent on budget over the past five years
Enhanced thermal performance for lower running costs
Greater cost control
Reduced wastage of materials
A wide variety of external treatments and claddings for unrivalled design flexibility