Merton Schools Maintenance & Condition Surveying Programme
Merton, Greater London
School maintenance & condition surveying programme for Merton Council across portfolio of primary schools, SEN schools & 6th form buildings.
Lewisham, Greater London
Brockley Rise Adult Education Centre
Lewisham Council
Lewisham Council appointed McBains to address accessibility issues alongside upgrades and refurbishment of identified classroom areas within the Brockley Rise Adult Learning Centre building.
The Adult Learning Centre is a valued resource to the community; offering a range of adult courses and attracting up to 4,000 learners per year. Brockley Rise centre is the largest, and oldest of Lewisham Council’s three adult education centres.
The building dates from pre-war and is a former primary school. The building is split across three floors and boasts classrooms, a café and kitchen area, plus art, exercise and music studios.
The Adult Learning Centre lacked a learning resource area, a viable front-of-house and information, advice and guidance space. Our team created a new part-glazed reception foyer extension to provide more of a presence for the site and a more welcoming environment for the learners.
The adjacent classrooms needed refurbishing and upgrading to meet the needs of SEND learners. The redesign introduced inviting spaces with improved seating, including soft seating areas and work booths.
A new street-level entrance enhanced accessibility and increased visibility of the facilities to the local community. Non-compliant disabled toilets were also upgraded to meet accessibility standards. Critical services, including the fire alarm panel, security and PA systems, and IT infrastructure, were relocated. MEP system tracing required careful planning to mitigate unnecessary disturbance of existing systems such as fire alarm, IT data network and the Public Address system.
Construction took place while the centre remained operational, requiring careful phasing with demolition of the entrance and car park closures strategically planned. In particular, noisy and disruptive works were scheduled for half-term, while IT system switchovers occurred during evenings and weekends. The project balanced preserving the building’s integrity with minimising disruption to learners.
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