BAM tots up its school building work

The three schools are Castle Mead Academy and Avanti Fields School, both in Leicester, plus Derby Cathedral School.

BAM was appointed to the schemes by the Department for Education under its national education framework.

The three schools are being developed and delivered mainly via what the company calls a ‘one BAM’ approach – drawing on several of BAM’s companies, including BAM Design.

Derby Cathedral School is a 1200-place school on an industrial railway siding next to the city’s Great Northern Road. The site is set out with a new three-storey, predominantly brick-built building with a separate sports block arranged around an entrance plaza.

Internally the building develops the existing school’s five-house approach. Views of the cathedral are framed by an ecclesiastical picture window set over two floors.

Castle Mead Academy in Leicester is a 1200-place new academy for the Mead Educational Trust. It is being built on a brownfield site that was the former Kirby and West Dairy, facing Friars Mill across the River Soar. This three-storey building was developed with enhanced, vertical standing-seam panel facades to complement the river elevation.

Avanti Fields School is a new build on a greenfield site. This is a Hindu faith school open to students of all faiths and none, including two primary classes and 26 additional nursery places.  It is located on the outskirts of Leicester and bounded to the north by a residential area, to the east by Gateway College and to the south a farm.

All three schools are expected to open in September 2021.

BAM Design is the lead architect for Derby Cathedral School and Castle Mead Academy and has supported Maber on Avanti Fields with structural and services engineering services.

Mott Macdonald is project managing Castle Mead Academy and Avanti Fields, while Aecom is project managing Derby Cathedral School.

BAM Construction regional director Dave Ellis said: “Education is an integral part of our story at BAM. How we go about our work for schools, colleges and universities is a reflection of our consistent collaborative culture, while it also shows the transformative digital construction techniques we employ, as we move towards standardised components and more off-site assembly techniques for example.”

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