Eco - The Future...

Education and Extended Services Centre - The Vision

During recent years Boston West has been transformed from a failing school in 2000, to a position where it is recognised as a ‘good’ school by the local community, the Local Authority and Ofsted. The many successes and growing popularity of the school has led to it being oversubscribed for the past three years.

As the school was originally built to accommodate significantly fewer children than the current 280, space within the building is restricted in certain areas, which limits the range of activities that can be organised – the hall in particular, is severely undersized. As the school is passionate about the place of the Arts in children’s lives (recognised by the Arts Council through two Artsmark Gold Awards) and promoting children’s understanding and care of the environment (three Eco-School Green Flag Awards), a visionary idea began to unfold!

Initially this was to create a sustainable ‘green’ building, with a learning space for Arts activities, that ‘sits’ as an integral part of our outstanding grounds / environmental area. As the idea was shared across a range of interested parties – children, staff, governors and parents, the vision itself grew to incorporate additional rooms that could be utilised to meet other elements of support for children and families through extended service providers.

Two lucky strokes enabled the planning process to move on at a pace in the form of an interested local architect, who had worked with the children as part of a county architecture project and a parent whose business involves sustainable energy technology. Working closely with these experts and across the school community, particularly with our children, wish-lists, ideas and modifications were discussed over a period of months until the final design plans were produced.

The following points outline the design brief and philosophy:

  • The scheme has been designed in collaboration with the staff and pupils of Boston West Primary School.
  • The aim for the design is to create a contemporary, flexible and sustainable Education Centre.
  • The main focus of the building is to promote an Arts / performance area with ancillary spaces to incorporate quiet areas, administration and storage areas.
  • The building is to include dedicated spaces to be available for use by extended services, Arts projects, meetings etc.
  • The building is to be located, and integral to, the school environmental area.
  • The main ethos of the building’s design is to maximise low energy and sustainability aspects of the building, both in materials and performance.

The sustainable elements of the design include:

  • timber frame construction;
  • high levels of insulation;
  • green roof;
  • rainwater harvesting;
  • air source under floor heating;
  • natural ventilation;
  • low energy lighting and equipment;
  • where available, locally sourced materials and labour.

A business plan and presentation is now being formulated, in order to attract the necessary funding, estimated at £250 000, to achieve our vision.