PROJECTS - MULBERRY BUSH SCHOOL

Teaching and residential facilities
Standlake, Oxfordshire
for Mulberry Bush School

The Mulberry Bush School is a registered charity that cares for the needs of up to 40 children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. The core of the current facilities was designed and built in the late sixties and provided dormitory style accommodation for the children on the first floor and school facilities downstairs. Over the last eight years FDH has been working with the school to modify, improve and extend its facilities to meet the needs of the present day.

The boundaries between the functions of living and learning were ill defined in the old layout and this was seen as the key problem that needed to be addressed in the new design. The children's life outside the school would be centred around four new, separately identifiable houses of a domestic style and scale, each with their own front door facing on to a 'village green'. The fourth of these houses was completed in June 1999. Works to the education and administrative areas commenced in 2000 and have included the building of two new classrooms, the repositioning of the main entrance, and offices and other facilities for the 'Family Care Team'.

The designs of the houses incorporate high quality materials: oak used structurally and decoratively, natural limestone, lime mortars and renders. Traditional building methods have been blended with the highest standards of energy efficient design. Thermal insulation levels far exceed the Building Regulations with the new accommodation incorporating 150mm fully insulated cavities. The refenestration of the existing building in high performance composite windows helps to create the definition between the functions of the different elements. It is anticipated that redevelopment will be completed by the end of 2001.

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