15 February 2002
Buro Happold provides building services engineering to groundbreaking development in Irish education
Dr. Michael Woods, T.D., Minister for Education and Science signed the first Public Private Partnership contract with Jarvis PLC for the provision of five new post-primary schools in Ireland. The architect on two of the schools is Jim Coady Associates, with Buro Happold providing building services engineering.
The schools in question, which will cater for around 1,750 pupils, are located in Ballincollig (1,000) and Dunmanway. The capital value of the schools project is €26M.
Susan Cormican, Buro Happold Dublin, commented, “Buro Happold has provided sophisticated daylight studies to each of the schools. Working with the architects, our engineers have helped determine window size, aspect ratio and head height in order to achieve required daylight factors. Each building’s natural air flow patterns have been modelled, and window and other openings adjusted to maximise natural ventilation. This work will ensure that the teachers and pupils benefit from natural daylight and ventilation, while each school will experience low running costs. The building design includes integrated IT infrastructure, with potential for expansion to allow future wire free communication systems.”
The PPP contract is a great boost for Irish design teams and building contractors who joined forces with Jarvis to win the EU-wide tender competition over eleven other consortia. All of the schools have been designed by Irish companies and will be built by Irish contractors.
Dr Woods, making the PPP announcement, commented that this will be the first of many education PPP projects and these projects will significantly augment the Irish Government’s unprecedented commitment to infrastructure in the education sector.
The new schools are to open at the end of 2002.
Press Office and Practice information at www.burohappold.com
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976 offering civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, infrastructure and traffic engineering, geotechnical engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, access consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
