Hampshire County Council Property Services celebrate triple national award win

Hampshire County Council’s Property Services team are celebrating after winning three national awards at the SPACES Civic Building of the Year Awards.

The prestigious awards, which reward design and construction excellence in the public sector, were given to the County Council’s in-house team of designers for:

Councillor Mel Kendal, Executive Member for Economic Development, said: “Congratulations to the Property Services team who are once again award winners. These three awards shows the range of their expertise – from designing modern-looking and energy efficient school buildings, to helping the public access an important part of our heritage. They should be rightly proud of their achievements.”

Westgate School in Winchester was re-modelled by extending the former on-site boarding house and nursery to create a new 420-place primary school – creating Hampshire’s first 4-16 ‘all-through school’ campus. The new primary school has double height and open spaces to increase natural light and ventilation, which also provides greater flexibility for learning and social cohesion.

The brick and slate roof also complements and closely matches the surrounding campus. Car parking has been moved from the centre of the site to create an all-weather ‘school green’ for school and community use, as well as new and improved pedestrian and cycle routes and school bus stop.

HMS M33 in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is one of the few remaining British World War I warships, which saw active service in the 1915 Gallipoli campaign. Funded by Heritage Lottery Funding, The National Museum of the Royal Navy appointed the Property Services team to design new stairs, lift and walkways to the historic warship including the experience of descending six meters into the dock and a unique view of M33’s distinctive flat bottom before stepping aboard.

SCOLA buildings were introduced in the 1960s as an affordable and quick building method to meet the demand for school buildings. Whilst structurally sound, SCOLA buildings are not energy efficient, with poor insulation and over glazing. For the SCOLA Reclad Programme, Property Services trialled a new cladding system involving an energy efficient insulated render and brick slip. The cladding system extends the life of the buildings, reduces the carbon footprint and energy costs, resulting in modern ‘future-proofed’ buildings for the schools to be proud of. So far, 110 Hampshire school buildings have had their SCOLA buildings reclad.

More information about Hampshire County Council Property Services, and these awards can be found at www.hants.gov.uk/propertyservices/ps-awards.htm