Goodson Associates were appointed as part of the design team to build the replacement Greenfaulds High School in Cumbernauld through the HUB process. The new 24,000 sq ft building will replace the existing 1960’s secondary school as well as delivering new modern sports facilities by way of full athletics track and associated pitches. The building will take the form of a three storey building and include a physical education wing to be used by the local community.

The topography of the site is complex and provided one of the biggest challenge to the project. The existing school was built into the surrounding hillside and the therefore the new school’s location was essentially determined by the nature of the tandem build. This in turn presented a geotechnical challenge as the building sat across a ‘ridge’ in the rockhead strata below. A piled solution was required to cater for the varying rock depths and a mixture of ground bearing and suspended ground floor slabs were promoted to give an economical slab solution.

Another challenge for the site was the diversion on the main surface water and foul water sewers that dissected the site. Previously running beneath the sports pitches we needed to work closely with Scottish Water to divert these large diameter sewers that were circa 5m deep. We agree a series of derogations with Scottish Water at pinch points to allow the original footprint proposals to be developed in line with the clients brief.

Based on various project specific factors such as constraints on site access and craneage, desire to expose soffits, a Post-Tensioned concrete flat slab solution was chosen for the project. A high degree of co-ordination with the architect was then required to ensure that an efficient layout plan could then be produced to suit the characteristics of the material and deliver an economic solution. The large span requirements of the internal sports hall wing was dictated that this element of the building roof be designed as a steel frame with large northlight frames to counter the lack of external windows to the elevations.