Newcastle based Chartered Building Surveyors Harrow Consulting have recently completed a £2.5m refurbishment and extension project at Darlington College, the largest expansion project at the Central Park campus since it opened 8 years ago.
Construction works were successfully handed over to Darlington College in December 2013, after a 6-month programme of works that included the formation of a new Construction Innovation Centre, internal refurbishment and the expansion of the existing Learning Resource Centre.
The new Construction Innovation Centre was officially opened on Friday 7th March by HRH Duke of York, alongside the pioneering C-State Sub Sea Engineering Training Centre, with which Harrow were also involved.
Harrow Consulting LLP acted as Lead Consultant on the Project, undertaking the following roles;
- Project Management,
- Architectural Design,
- CDMc
Construction works were undertaken by Northumberland-based Howard Russell Construction.
The Harrow team were been able to deliver an innovative, state of the art teaching facility that enhances the existing college campus, offering exceptional student training experience within the Construction and Engineering sectors.
The new facilities comprise modern Plumbing, Brickwork, Electrical and Painting and Decoration Workshops, in addition to Gas Assessment and a technologically advanced Green Energy training area. The Construction Innovation Centre also houses new, flexible IT seminar suites providing essential teaching space and modern conferencing facilities.
The works provided circa 2300sqm of additional teaching and clerical floor space, radically transforming access routes and student circulation through the campus. A key design philosophy of the project was to rationalise student traffic by the formation of a central, designated student entrance area where personal protective equipment is issued to all students upon arrival. Students then enter the workshop areas and are able to replicate construction and engineering industry working conditions, which will be beneficial upon gaining full time employment.
A Bistro / café area was also constructed to extend the current service offering and provide a café/dining area for students, separate to the main workshops.
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