Houlton School, Houlton, Rugby – Urban&Civic and Aviva Investors

This transformation of the Grade II listed Rugby Radio Station into a 6FE secondary school lies at the heart of this wider development of 6,200 homes. The C Station building has been restored, alongside two new teaching blocks, a sports hall and outdoor sports facilities. Dating back to 1925, the Rugby Radio Station site was once a communications hub of global significance, and is a well-loved local landmark.

Where is the project located 
Houlton School, Signal Drive, Houlton, Rugby, CV23 1ED
 
Who is the developer/client of the project? 
Urban&Civic with Aviva Investors
 

Describe the social and environmental context of this project and its neighbourhood and people?

In February 2020, work began on the restoration and transformation of the Grade II listed Rugby Radio Station into a 6FE secondary school at the heart of the new community of Houlton. Houlton School comprises the restoration of the C Station building, alongside two new teaching blocks, a sports hall and outdoor sports facilities. Two years in the making, and despite the national lockdown, it was completed to time and budget and welcomed its first pupils in September 2021.Houlton is being delivered by master developer Urban&Civic (U&C), as part of a JV with Aviva, as a sustainable urban extension comprising 6,200 homes, schools, employment, community and retail provision and a network of open space. Over 800 homes are now occupied along with a raft of early social infrastructure including a primary school, community centre, café, shop and co-working space. The new school transformed from the C Station buildings lies at the centre of the development and its future District Centre acting as a catalyst for the continued growth of more community infrastructure.

Dating back to 1925, the Rugby Radio Station site was once a communications hub of global significance, that was also a well-loved local landmark. The world’s first transatlantic voice transmission was sent via the station in 1927 and received in the town of Houlton in Maine USA – its naming just one of the many history projects undertaken by U&C and the local community to integrate the history into the future of the new place.
 
Describe the intervention you’ve made including its purpose and motivation, as well as its viability or business case. 

The iconic, imposing 1920s C Station building was recognised by U&C as having significant unlocked potential to educate future generations. The outline planning permission for the site required the delivery of a secondary school as part of the District Centre, in accordance with S106 triggers, by the occupation of 1,800 dwellings. Due to an innovative funding agreement with the DfE, and U&C’s wider commitment to the early delivery of infrastructure, the school’s delivery was fast-tracked by several years. Similar to the Homes England loan which enabled U&C to accelerate a 5km link road at Houlton to unlock land, the DfE provided £35m to deliver the school early as repayable grant coming back to them via U&C’s developer commitments through s106.A partnership forged over several years by U&C with the Transforming Lives Educational Trust (TLET),a local multi academy trust, provided for a fully brokered solution to deliver a new school for Rugby. TLET had permission to open a new school through the DfE’s Free Schools programme and U&C and DfE had identified a way to provide land and buildings to deliver a truly unique educational environment. U&C took the delivery risk on the Listed buildings taking on the design, conversion and construction of the project – completed in large part through the global pandemic.

Set in the context of a constrained landscape for secondary school places in Rugby, the solution gained full support from the local education authority, WCC. All partners were involved closely through the life of the project.

How does this project make use of an existing structure, place or building in a creative way? Is it innovative? How will this project continue to evolve or enable future flexibility and adaptation? Have you considered its resilience? 

The brief for the team was to bring forward an outstanding education facility to support the Houlton community, whilst repurposing the historic asset through bespoke design, to comply with the DfE’s specification.The challenges for architects vHH were extensive in taking buildings designed for large radio transmitters and tuning coils and turning them into modern teaching spaces. Technical innovations came from the design team’s shared determination to leave a heritage and sustainability legacy, which are best seen in this video youtu.be/0FUaLjSSbI4. showing the extent of work undertaken.

The project started from the conviction that reuse of the listed building was more sustainable than new build, thereby justifying retention of the heritage buildings, despite their challenges. Huge efforts have been made to ensure that the whole project, integrated into the wider masterplan, leaves a positive environmental legacy as well as securing lasting heritage and community value.

The school buildings are designed to be as flexible as possible, by integrating frames and services ‘spines’, so they can be internally remodelled in the future.

All buildings were modelled with passivhaus software, considering both regulated and unregulated energy use, to develop details, and predict and refine operational costs and carbon.

The new buildings are future-proofed with exemplary insulation and air-tightness and triple-glazing. The teaching blocks are entirely electric, each heated with air source heat pumps. As well as meeting the stringent DfE specification, the school demonstrates the practical sustainability of reuse, upgrading a listed building to provide excellent energy performance.

What is the environmental and social impact of the project? Please share evidence or data to support your entry

When the school is at full capacity, it will generate an estimated 120 full-time teaching and support staff jobs with hundreds of construction jobs already provided. Its footfall is already acting as a catalyst to the early delivery of the District Centre supporting the viability and job creation of future retail, community and commercial uses.Its calibre, performance and visual impact acts as a significant draw for families encouraging them to relocate to Houlton, supporting the local economy in local jobs and investing in local businesses. The school was full when it opened and is heavily oversubscribed for its second academic year signalling its success and important role in Houlton’s continued growth.

Houlton School strongly promotes health and wellbeing for its pupils, providing high specification sports hall, pitches, dance and drama studios, to the embedding of healthy activities through the curriculum and extra-curricular activities. They run a Travel Plan for pupils and staff and a bus service is already in operation as well as a network of footpaths and cycleways throughout Houlton.

A bespoke Community Use Agreement governed by residents has been created to safeguard access of provision for the new community of Houlton as it grows.

The radio legacy is inbuilt into the curriculum at the school through science, communications and engineering. Pupils have a radio station and the school is set to offer a unique broadcast qualification at A-level. The school’s House teams are all world-renowned communicators and rooms in the school have retained their radio station names.