Education Today Education Today Magazine
Preparing for the new school year isn’t just about setting lesson plans. Ensuring that the school is capable of accommodating the new influx of pupils is paramount to ensuring a safe and comfortable training environment for all.
Schools that are looking to improve, extend or build new classrooms and educational facilities are turning, more and more, to modular construction; not just for temporary classroom use, whilst the facility is being built, but for the actual permanent building too.
Modular buildings have recently hit the headlines as hospitals around the UK have utilised this method of off-site construction to quickly erect safe and secure centres for hospital staff to work in and test for Covid-19. The method of building inside a facility before erecting the building on-site cuts down on-site construction time considerably which is why the healthcare industry is actively looking at modular construction over its traditional brick-built counterpart.
For a long time, modular buildings, also known as prefabricated buildings, have been mistaken for nothing more than a cabin or basic shell of a building. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Modular school buildings can be externally designed using thermowood cladding, triple-glazed glass and uPVC fascias whilst the buildings themselves can accommodate all the facilities your school may require, from laboratories to canteens and everything in-between, with plumbing, electrics and IT infrastructure installed.
Cotaplan, one of the leading modular building companies in the UK, were the first to meet the strict, eco-friendly and environmentally efficient Passivhaus Passivclass standards in the UK with the construction of Smallwood Primary School in South West London. Their efforts have seen them construct other Passivhaus builds, such as the sensory education facilities at Linden Lodge in Wimbledon, as well as other standard, bespoke modular builds for nurseries and schools across the UK. With modular construction a fraction of the cost of traditional builds, and with a shorter time to completion date, it’s no wonder that the education sector is moving towards this more efficient method of construction.