Windproof, watertight (and environmentally friendly!)

Welcome to the May 2011 College 2012 update. Much has changed in the past two months and the photos which follow demonstrate how the external works saw the building become windproof and watertight as well as the internal works forming the building we will move into in about 8 weeks time.

Firstly looking across at the Assistant Principal's office and the College 2012/Facilities offices, with bSolutions directly below.

Inside the Assistant Principal's office, those of you with a good memory may recall the windows which were above Stewart Chalmers/Duncan Abernethy's desks. This wall has now been removed to create additional storage space.

Fiona Odger has surveyed her office and deemed it fit for occupation (once the jacuzzi is installed!).

Walls have now been formed from the B corridor through into the main atrium (the new light-well is on the right).

The light-well floods the main atrium with light and will also be an outdoor seating area for the warmer months. A slate mulch will match the internal flooring and allow water to drain away.

As you pass through the door into the main atrium, the first office on the left is Student Services (approximately where the admin team used to stay). Inside the office, Student Funding is on the immediate left while ahead is a meeting room (5 smaller ones are on the right). Employability will be at the back of the room, Guidance towards the front and Learner Development round the corner to the left.

Next to Student Services, the curved wall around the Library/Learning Resources Centre has been formed.

Inside, the library stretches back to where B29 would once have been.

A large roof light above the library reception desk will ensure lots of natural light in the library area.

Next to the library (heading round towards reception and the main entrance), impressive 4.2m diameter roof lights flood the entrance with light.

Admissions can be found on the left (looking out towards the entrance). The window will form a counter for students enquiries.

Opposite reception, bSolutions can be found and the janitor's office next door.

Reception will be on the right as you enter the main building and the entrance to its right, takes you through to Finance, HR and Marketing (by secure access). A handmade reception desk is currently under construction.

Going through this entrance and to the right, staff will use the door to the left (see below) to take them through to Finance, HR and Marketing. The door to the right leads to a reception counter for students to speak to the Finance team.

Much of the work over the past month has been on the installation of the main atrium ceiling. 135 tonnes of scaffolding were required to create a platform for construction staff to work from. 500 sheets of plasterboard have been screwed to a steel grid hanging from the roof. Everything had to be carried in by hand! Most commented that it was the biggest ceiling they had ever worked on.

Plasterboard all taped and enjoying 3 coats of Dulux brilliant white emulsion!

Sections of the ceiling have perforations in them, designed for acoustic performance (to remove some of the echo from such a large area). The column trees are being painted dark grey to match the slate flooring and contrast with the white walls and ceiling.

The underfloor heating (mentioned in previous blogs) has now been switched on and has been ratcheted up by 5 degrees per day (to a max 50 degrees) to cure the concrete flooring and screed. Once the moisture has dropped below 75, it is safe for final floorings to be installed on top of it. 'Hygrometers' are sealed to the floor to measure the moisture. 64 is deemed 'pretty good!'

With the ceiling complete, the huge cage of scaffolding was removed leaving a much more open and well lit space. The space behind the yellow wall, will eventually become a store for graduation furniture/staging/etc. There will also be a storage cage for Technicians equipment.

To the west of the atrium, a Kal-wall translucent window has been installed. Blue feature lighting will be installed behind this as a final touch.

Below this window (at ground floor level), openings are formed into the E corridor. Screens will be installed with integral blinds over the next few weeks.

High level windows (looking towards Henderson Rd) are electrically operated allowing natural cooling of the atrium in warm weather. Staff work rooms are positioned on the first and ground floors and again will have double-glazed screens with integral blinds looking into the atrium.

The Boardroom can be seen to the left of the following picture with the main stairs to the upstairs workroom just to the right of it. Eventually, the exterior of the Boardroom will be in Strawberry Red with a glass surface fixed into place.

The main atrium (taken looking East from the plant deck - the windows look out to sea), is the most spectacular feature of the new building. This would previously have been a garden area, flexi-centre and lecture theatre/canteen.

Looking out the upstairs windows (in the rain!), the new air-handling units have been craned into position on the roof. They will take pre-heated air from the Ground Air Heat Exchanger (see later) and heat the main atrium.

Other air handling units are inside, above the management offices on the first floor and above the library.

Scaffolding has now been removed from the front entrance to prepare for the planer glazing which will go up over the next 2 weeks.

Looking on from the east side, lots of new windows will again flood the side area with light while the 'Alukobond' cladding gives a superior feel to the exterior.

Vents are being installed to draw air into the air handling units. Louvres are being installed below the top windows on both sides of the front of the building to disguise them.

On the outside of the Admin corridor, external insulation has been installed to control the temperature of these rooms, along with new windows to aid air circulation and natural ventilation. Jim Kirkwood's office is nearest left in the picture (same location as previously). The window on the right used to belong to Jim Saunders/Liz Gault. Looking forwards this will be HR's interview room. Norbo cladding will shortly cover the insulation.

The gym hall has had holes cut into it to expose existing steelwork.

Steelwork has then been erected and bolted to it. This will eventually support new insulation and Norbo cladding to match the Admin corridor.

Behind the main building, grass was stripped in preparation for the Ground Air Heat exchanger pipework.

The GAHE is a system which draws in outside air and sucks it through hundreds of meters of underground pipework (approx 2m down) raising it to ground temperature (approx 11 degrees). This essentially means that the air handling units don't have to work as hard to heat low temperature air before it enters the building (thereby saving energy).

The 1m black pipes connect 44 x 30cm pipes together to form a grid. A 1m pipe will then be extended beneath the rear car park and up the side of the building before connecting to the air handling units on the rear roof.

The entire system is blinded with sand to avoid damage to the pipes.....

.....before being backfilled with the excavated spoil.



At the same time, Solyndra solar photovoltaic panels were delivered to be installed above the main entrance. PV panels convert daylight/sunlight into electricity.

A UK first for this type/size of installation, 101 panels will generate approx 20kW in peak conditions. The picture below shows how they are laid out around the circular roof lights.

......and just to prove that they work, they have so far generated over 3,000 units - which equates to over £1,000 income from feed in tariffs from the government, as well as savings in our energy bills.

Data displays are currently only available on the inverter panel inside the plant room, however the plan is to eventually connect it to the College's plasma information system so that staff and students can monitor the generation capacity and CO2 savings.

8 weeks and counting until we move back into the building!

From floor to ceiling...

Welcome to the March 2011 College 2012 update! Much has changed since my last update as you will see in the many photos that follow. Work continues apace as Robertsons endeavour to claw back some of the time that was lost due to the severe December weather. As the title suggests, I have tried to show where the changes have taken place in each area of the building. So starting with the ground floor.....

The commercial entrance had been hollowed out with the last section of steel omitted to allow cement trucks to enter the building while the floor was formed (note the canal which formed as a result of the rain and snow!).




Once the west end of the building had been concreted, this channel was filled up and compacted.

....leaving a final floor level ready for the polythene membrane and concrete in the remaining areas.

Meanwhile in the main atrium....

In my last blog, you will recall the atrium area which had been concreted (see below).

On top of this, sheets of polystyrene insulation are laid...

....before a complex array of underfloor heating pipes are stapled down (looking along towards hairdressing/catering).

...and in the other direction towards the e-corridor. (As a side issue, the timber area which looks out on to N11, will eventually be replaced by glass).

...and at the front entrance....

Then a low density screed is pumped over the whole system to a depth of about 40mm above the pipes.

Tankers delivered batches of this self levelling screed over two weeks.

...and although it is self-levelling, a bit of manual assistance ensures the best possible floor finish (ready for slate tiling).

Voila! Note the various floor boxes sticking up which will bring power and data to various points in the atrium. This meant that careful consideration had to be given early to the furniture and its location.

The second phase involved the area which will become the refectory (approximately in the same location as the library and canteen were in the old building).

Unfortunately despite best efforts to create a perfectly flat surface, 'Tiddles' crept in overnight to leave her 'autograph'! If anyone locally has grey paw prints on their carpet, there's a fair chance that they came from here!

Once the floor was laid, pre-cast stairs were delivered. These will be fire evacuation stairs which are mainly used in emergencies.

One set was lowered in to the front of the building and one set at the rear. Both sets access the mezzanine floor near the Costa shop.

Once in position, concrete secures them into place.

Meantime, work had commenced to form the foundations for the lightwell in the middle of the building. This will the only area inside the building which is outside. A pleasant place to sit in the summer or somewhere to look out onto when it snows! We are also considering burying a time capsule here. So any suggestions for contents welcomed (apart from the cat!!!)

Once the concrete base was in position, AC Yule set about installing the frames for the glass.

Moving up a floor, offices are now being formed (more or less in the same place as the Boardroom used to be). These will house (from front entrance towards main atrium) Assistant Principals, College 2012/Facilities, Principal, Principal's Secretary, Sector Administrators and Quality Assistant. Above them is the plant area.

Inside the main staff workroom, Sector Manager's offices are being formed along with the External Affairs Manager's office.

Two types of roofing are being installed. Where existing flat roofs remain, these are being covered over with a Sarnafil structure which is basically a hard foam insulation covered by a heavy waterproof vinyl (as below).....

....and in addition, newly formed areas of the building (the main atriums) are protected by a Calzip roofing structure which is essentially thick rockwool insulation sandwiched between two sheets of aluminium.

The top layer of aluminum is profiled on site. It starts on large flat rolls,...

before being run through a series of rollers.....

before emerging in its final shape.

Each sheet is approx 30 feet long and is lifted manually into a stack ready for craning on to the roof.

A special cradle is used to avoid damaging the sheets as they are lifted.



Below, Rockwool is unrolled ready for the top sheet. The 'pegs' maximise the efficiency of the insulation by keeping it 'uncompacted'. Once the top sheet is placed on top of the pegs, sheets are crimped together on to the peg which secures the whole system.

Back in the inside, walls continue to shoot up. Below is the library wall looking towards the front entrance.

The final steelwork has now been installed at the commercial entrance (into hairdressing and catering).

At the front entrance, preparations are underway for the revolving doors.

...and above the atrium, a fall-arrest system is installed. Maintenance staff who access this area require to hook on to this wire rope system to prevent them from getting too close to the edge. The same system has been installed on other sections of the roof (above the gym hall and main entrance).

For those of you wondering what the large crane was doing on site last week, custom built glass had been brought up from London to fill the 4 large roof lights above the main entrance, and a smaller one above the new library.

From the inside, it is hard to tell if they are installed or not! but it will be a fantastic feature which floods the inside of the building with natural daylight. They are slightly obscured to minimise any debris (or anything else that seagulls drop) landing on them.

In the mezzanine area, the Costa coffee shop and Students Association office are beginning to take shape.

...and a great vantage point now exists to sit with a cup of coffee and see everything that is going on around you (Boardroom directly in front, management offices to the left, admin office below front and library below left). Note the bank of light above left which currently awaits glass.

Glass will also run the full length of the building on the north side (see below). Plasterboard is now being installed along the north side of the atrium adjacent to the T corridor. Behind it will be one of the staff workrooms as well as a storage room which houses conference furniture, etc.

The pressure is now on to get the building windproof and watertight by the end of the month. Insulated Kingspan cladding panels are lifted on to the first floor by telehandler.

Before being screwed into position.

Finally (for this month), we have just taken delivery of a large stock of ducting which will be buried at the back of the College as a key component of our Ground Air Heat Exchanger. This piece of equipment is an environmentally friendly solution whcih warms the air coming into the building in the winter and cools it in the summer.

Exciting developments are now taking place on a day by day basis. For the very latest updates, remember to log on to www.twitter.com and follow banff_buchan.