Norland College - Bath

Excelling in childcare training since 1892

The Project

First established by Emily ward in 1892, Norland College has become world leader in childcare training centred around the child. Having moved to various locations in the past, the College is now based in Bath. Along with its location, the curriculum at Norland has changed and progressed with the times to offer the most up to date academic childcare training courses and the highest practice standards in line with the latest research.


Building Control

Oculus was appointed in the summer of 2014 to oversee the expansion of Norland into a new location in the Oldfield Park area of Bath. The new site houses a sundry of amenities, including state of the art lecture rooms, a simulated nursery area, and purpose built on-site kitchens to name a few.  Working alongside the Nick Shipp Architects, Oculus were able to assist the team to optimise the fire safety requirements to make best use of the single staircase layout having regard to the clients aspirations for occupancy levels.


 

 

CASE STUDY
Burwalls House

The Burwalls site consists of a substantial historic Grade II listed main house and stable block annex and lies in nearly 5 acres of land adjacent to Brunel’s world famous Clifton Suspension Bridge. The main house is in the Jacobethan style and was constructed in 1872 as a private dwelling by Joseph Leech, a local entrepreneur and owner of the Bristol Times and Mirror.

The site was purchased in 2014 by Kersfield Developments who obtained permission to split the main house into 5 impressive apartments, convert the Stable block in to 2 units and for the construction of 4 new detached dwellings.

The main house has been extended at various points during its history and some of the current works in this sensitive conversion were to remove elements of the more recent additions which are detrimental to the original building.

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CASE STUDY
Airbus - AWIC

The new £40m Aircraft Wing Integration Centre is arranged to maximise opportunities for departments to share spaces, equipment and ideas and will provide an innovative, highly flexible and easily adaptable physical test environment that forms a proving ground for the future technologies. This includes Airbus’ Wings of tomorrow programme, part of which focuses on exploring how wings can be more efficient, lighter and easier to make and assemble, looking at the best materials to use, assembly techniques and new technologies in aerodynamics and wing architecture. Covering 9,050m2 the scheme comprises hangar facilities including a 'Strong Floor' and relocatable ‘Strong Wall’, a high capacity hydraulic system to power multiple test rigs, three overhead cranes, laboratories, testing control rooms and open plan offices. As this facility is to be used to develop new technologies it was clearly important to build in flexibility for future uses. The delivery team was involved through this period and translated the design development into physical form with the same mind-set.

The ‘Strong Floor’ itself is 40 metres long by 18 metres wide and is housed within a building over 25 metres tall to allow the testing of full size wings from the largest Airbus aircraft including long term fatigue testing. A total of 1,440 cubic metres of concrete was used for the floor which took some 23 hours to cast to a total depth of two metres. The steel reinforcement amounted to a total of approximately 280 tonnes of rebar, estimated to be around 54 km laid end-to-end.

The 'Strong Wall' is 14 metres long, 10 metres high, 4.5 metres deep and has a total weight of 220 tonnes. It is made up of four modules and can be configured in two separate two module walls or a single four module wall. The mounting surfaces are machined to a close tolerance and when erected on the strong floor all points on the flange faces are within +/-1mm of a flat vertical plane. The structure is designed to cope with billions of load cycles so resistance to fatigue is the determining factor as well as its immense strength.

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CASE STUDY
Astley Castle

A 12th-century fortified manor which had been lying in ruins since a fire in 1978, Astley Castle had seen additions and revisions carried out in almost every century since Medieval times. Throughout its history the site has been owned by no less than three Queens of England.

The Landmark Trust boldly set out to reinstate occupancy of Astley Castle in a manner appropriate for the 21st century.  After careful recording, those parts of the building beyond pragmatic repair were taken down.  By inserting a groundbreaking modern holiday home into the shell of the ancient castle, the architects, Witherford Watson Mann, were able to both stabilise the ruin and create the next layer of the building’s history.  The results showcase how modern architecture can be unashamedly but sympathetically stitched into ancient fabric to significant effect.

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