The German School | Primary School

The German School building is situated within a conservation area adjacent to the listed Douglas House. The accommodation includes eight classrooms and four adjacent group rooms over two floors, which are required to implement new teaching concepts within the primary school. The new building improves the quality of teaching in providing additional space and making provision for the German School’s ‘whole day’ school concept.

The proposed new building is a solid reinforced concrete cross wall structure with a partial basement. The external façades feature inclined curtain walling and a rain-screen terra-cotta panelled façade with a built in frame system to create a ‘green wall’.

The sustainable design of the proposed school building incorporates naturally ventilated classrooms and group spaces. Extensive modelling was undertaken to optimise the facade design and develop the ventilation strategy to incorporate peak summer boost extract to the natural ventilation solution. Rainwater is attenuated and fed into soakaways using natural infiltration.

Elementa provide full mechanical, electrical, public health and sustainability detailed design services for this scheme taking the original architectural concept developed in Germany and we translated this into a solution compliant UK building regulations and building bulletins.