Berkshire College of Agriculture,
Learning Resource Centre

Located a conservation area of historical parkland, this regional college provides training and education through further and higher education programmes.

The brief was provide a Learning Resource Centre which, as the focal point of the campus, was to give the college a new and imposing entrance. With a set budget, funded by the Learning Skills Council, the design had to minimise long-term running costs. The chosen site required demolition, site clearance and the removal of contaminated waste, before the new centre could be constructed.

The Learning Resource Centre building is remarkable for its sustainability and 'green' credentials. The roof is profiled metal and the external walls are brickwork with feature flint walls (the flint is pre-cast in concrete block and subsequently pointed) to match the external appearance of the original historical building. The building has three different structural design solutions for separate areas of the building with the emphasis on increasing the mass of the building to regulate heat differentials and to provide natural ventilation automatically controlled though passivents in the windows and the roof.

The single building accommodates 24-hour teaching space, two floors of library, a computer centre, a 69-seat lecture theatre, administration offices, a new reception and student services area.