Work has begun on the first school in the UK to be built entirely from timber panels.
The £6.2m St Agnes Church of England Primary School in Manchester will be built from 600 laminated timber panels made in Switzerland and then shipped to the UK for on-site construction. The new three-storey building will house 360 pupils in nine classrooms and replaces the old school.
Supplied by solid timber panel specialist Eurban, the panels will be made from offcuts from the European sawmilling industry and are designed to improve the school’s environmental credentials by removing the steel and concrete elements of a traditional build. It is based on the carbon neutral mini-school demonstrated at BRE’s OFFSITE2007 exhbition.
“We’re very excited by this groundbreaking approach to construction,” said John Lorimer, capital programme director for Manchester City Council.
“The system offers good value for money and will speed up the build process considerably, reducing disruption both to the school and local community.”
Andy Smith, senior build manager with construction firm Willmott Dixon, said “it really should become more common for big buildings to be constructed this way”, citing the cost and environmental benefits of building with off-site constructed timber panels.
