Oaklands
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Andy Matthews (website) Download Original
Residential retrofit of the former Oaklands College in St Albans with the addition of 15 new apartment blocks within the listed campus
The seven original Grade II listed post-war former educational campus in the centre of St. Albans have been retrofitted as flats. The addition of 15 new blocks across the site, laid out in a similar Mondrianesque rectilinear pattern to the central group of retained college buildings, has created a development of 329 flats.
Pods containing all services, kitchens and bathrooms, which separate living and sleeping areas, avoiding the need for walls for this purpose, have been inserted into the retrofitted buildings. To improve the standard of the external envelope, double glazing units were installed and the roof heavily insulated.
The palette of materials used for the new block, which have aluminium-framed windows, pre-weathered zinc storey-height cladding panels and grey terracotta rainscreen tiles, picks up on the grey and calm of the original buildings.
Data
- Begun: Apr 2008
- Completed: Jul 2011
- Floor area: 17,297m2
- Sector: Residential
- Total cost: £22.9M
- Procurement: Design & Build
- Address: St. Peters Road, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1 3RX, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: John Pardey Architects
- Client: Nicholas King Homes
- Structural engineer: Barton Engineers
- M&E consultant: Hoare Lea
- Approved building inspector : Assent Building Control
- Main contractor: NK Homes
- Conservation consultant: Mervyn Miller
- Facade consultant: Cladtech
- Landscape consultant: Mark Cooper Associates
- Arboricultural consultant: CBA Trees
- Ecological consultant: Nature Matters
- Sustainability consultant: Faber Maunsell
- Accessibility consultant: Penton, Smart + Grimwade
- CDM coordinator: Bridge Security
- Quantity surveyor: NK Homes
- Project manager: NK Homes
Suppliers
- Internal walls: British Gypsum
