Doran Consulting were appointed by the Main Contractor,
Farrans Construction to provide civil and structural design services as part of
the Design and Construction team.
The main building has CFA piled foundations, supporting a hollowcore slab suspended ground floor. The structural frame is structural steelwork throughout, supporting composite concrete first floor and roof slabs. The building façade is uses lightweight ‘Metsec’ type framing to support a variety of rainscreen cladding systems.
The sports hall is a steel framed portal frame type structure, with a two storey lean-to section and composite upper floor slab.
Extensive external works include major drainage diversions, significant earthworks, site retaining walls (reinforced concrete and modular), and extensive new sports pitches and hard landscaping.
The design was carried using BIM software, primarily Revit, Civil 3D, and Masterseries 3D analysis software.
Main Facilities
The school has 53 classrooms in a new 3 storey building, designed for a population of 1,050 pupils. The building covers some 9,800 m² and includes science rooms, a science garden, specialist design and technology rooms, spacious library, sixth form study rooms and social areas, special educational needs rooms, a large art room and outdoor learning terrace. As the school is geared towards the performing arts, a stage area with retractable seating is a main feature. Additional facilities include an outdoor amphitheatre and performing arts/music specialist rooms. Sustainable features such as brown roof, rainwater harvesting and photovoltaics are included.
Sports Facilities
The school has extensive indoor and outdoor sports facilities. These include a Sports Hall with markings for 4 badminton courts, 5-a-side and basketball courts; gym; fitness suite; MUGA pitches; 3G synthetic pitch; tennis courts; 3 football pitches; rugby pitch; 400m running track; long jump track and pit. The office and changing area of the sports facility included admin offices, changing rooms, PE store; trampoline stores; mat stores and external stores.
In 2017 this project won a Structural Award in the Best Project Outside NI category, from the Institution of Structural Engineers, Northern Ireland.