Learning

Dalkeith Community Campus

Brief

The brief for the new campus called for the replacement of St. David's RC High School and Dalkeith High School from their respective locations in the centre of Dalkeith onto a single shared campus.  Saltersgate School, a special needs school for one hundred pupils was also to be incorporated into the campus development with shared facilities for dining, library, sports and outdoor recreation.  With over two thousand pupils located on the campus, it was important that each school retained its own original identity and ethos.  This is achieved by providing each school with its own entrance area, classroom blocks, and administration facilities whilst providing discreet connections to the shared accommodation.  The new schools were also to be made available to the local community for a number of uses outside of the core school hours.

Response

The buildings have been designed so that each school retains its own unique identity whilst at the same time benefitting from a substantially improved level of shared teaching and leisure facilities than each school could have provided previously. The buildings are arranged over two storeys in an organic free-flowing form integrating well with the surrounding landscape. By creating a series of small pavilions, linked together with glazed blocks providing transparent social spaces and pupil entrances, the overall mass and scale of the development is reduced and the visual impact on the surrounding countryside minimised.

Outcome

The project was officially handed over to Midlothian Council in October 2003 with the first school pupils entering shortly thereafter.  The PPP project was delivered on time and on budget and is the realisation of a long-held vision to replace outdated facilities with new schools specifically designed to meet the curriculum needs of the twenty first century.  The new campus buildings also provide a series of firsts for the community of Dalkeith – the first public swimming pool, the first all-weather running track, the first all-weather floodlit football / hockey pitches and the first proper theatre facility.

Team