New Housing, Oaklands College Site, St Albans, Hertfordshire
This is a housing project with over new 450 apartments, comprising twenty new build blocks and five refurbished Grade Two Listed buildings. The college was originally designed and constructed in the late 1950’s as part of the Hertfordshire Schools Project, and had continued in use until 2004. Changing educational requirements and access issues forced the college to move to more appropriate modern accommodation, and the site was converted to largely residential use, although still maintaining the open campus environment. The new and listed buildings have been set into the same open Mondrian inspired masterplan grid that was used in the original Hertfordshire County Council design. Over two hectares of new underground car parking were also incorporated into the scheme, and two of the listed buildings are retained for community use.
As well as the structural design of all new buildings and underground car parks, our role was also to survey the listed buildings, and to advise on their conversion and conservation. We were also asked to reverse engineer the original cladding system to the Listed blocks so that it could be renovated and retained. The main phase of the project was completed early in 2011, and subsequent phases were completed in 2015.
Client Nicholas King Homes PLC
Architect (Planning) John Pardey Architects
Project Value £50 million
Awards RIBA Awards Commendation 2012
