ISG has been selected to build three special education needs (SEN) schools – Grand Union Village in Northolt, Portsmouth SEN and Two Bridges in Bristol – as well as the Harris Academy Rainham sixth form college and Faringdon School in Oxfordshire.
The Bristol project, the largest to be awarded in this batch, at £12.5m, will create a new 112-place school and is a net zero carbon (NZC) pathfinder scheme. The school has to be net zero carbon in operation, led by improvements in the building design and fabric, supported with renewable energy generated on site.
The five contracts come on top of its £35m haul of three school wins announced in January. In each case ISG is using a ‘platform design for manufacture and assembly’ approach, or P-DfMA, where building components are standardised as much as possible and transported to site ready to install. The manufacturing is all farmed out to subcontractors.
For example, both Harris Academy Rainham and the Portsmouth SEN project will use the same structural insulated panels (SIPS) envelope system, for example, for efficiency savings.
Paul Watkins, framework manager for ISG’s UK Construction business, said: “The DfE’s pioneering construction framework is designed around the principles of strong contractor collaboration and supporting innovation that delivers outstanding education spaces designed to meet rigorous environmental performance and efficient operational standards. By encouraging framework contractors to really challenge traditional operating processes, the DfE has provided the catalyst for transformational change in our sector and the highly positive results from this programme demonstrate the true efficacy of a P-DfMA approach.”
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