School Refurbishment - An historic perspective

The available funding for the Priority Schools Building Programme was so over-subscribed it demonstrates not only the amount of work required to existing buildings, but also how difficult it is likely to be over the short to medium term future to find the necessary resources to be able carry it out. At English Heritage, we believe that refurbishing historic school buildings can play an effective part of the strategy to achieve this vision, especially given the limited resources available.

Managing Change
English Heritage is the Government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment. Our role is to help protect England’s historic environment and to promote awareness, understanding and enjoyment of it. When it comes to the school estate, our interest lies in helping our colleagues in local authorities to ensure that historic school buildings continue in educational use wherever possible through the careful management of change and updating of facilities. Of course, when we refer to ‘historic’ schools we are talking about a very broad range of buildings. There are over 5,000 listed school buildings in England (although some of these are no longer in educational use) while there are many more situated within conservation areas designated for their special character. There are also likely to be a number of further schools that are of ‘listable’ quality that have not as yet been designated. The types of school buildings that can be described as ‘historic’ are similarly wide-ranging – from several hundred year old buildings that remain in use as schools to modernist architecture built in the post war period.

Budgets
In addition to ongoing reductions in public sector budgets, there are a number of other trends that are creating pressure on the existing school estate. The surge in the birth rate that began a few years ago, particularly in London, is now starting to have significant implications for local education authorities as demand for school places starts to outstrip supply. In tandem with this are the difficulties in identifying new sites for schools, particularly in more densely populated urban areas.

At the same time, there is now a much greater awareness of the need for careful management of the existing built environment in the interests of sustainability. Demolition and replacement of existing school buildings involves a high carbon impact, landfill implications and associated costs as well as the material impact of the replacement new build and the loss of the embodied energy within the buildings demolished.

Taken together, these issues demonstrate how important it is that we continue to make best use of the entire range of the existing school estate, including historic school buildings.

Benefits of refurbishment
Refurbishment of historic buildings often provides a cornerstone for wider regeneration projects and can signal renewed confidence and vitality in particular neighbourhoods. Retaining existing buildings can also help preserve long standing identity and the sense of educational purpose of the school in question. Historic school buildings are often more spacious than more modern schools, and this ‘loose fit’ can create opportunities for remodelling to provide different floorspace and adaptation to modern requirements.

In practical terms, refurbishment and remodelling can often be cheaper than demolition and replacement while there will always almost be less disruption to  students during the construction process. In recent years, there have been a number of refurbishment projects that have taken advantage of the historic character of their buildings to provide new learning resources. For example, High Storrs School in Sheffield refurbished certain areas of the Grade II listed building with their original fixtures and fittings in order for students to be able to better understand how previous generations of students and staff taught and learned at the school.

A successful approach to these kinds of refurbishment projects starts with a proper understanding of the significance of the buildings in question before embarking on developing the details of the scheme, Constructive Conservation is a term that English Heritage uses to describe the kind of approach that enables the modernisation and updating of sensitive and important historic buildings by carefully defining what is special or distinctive about a building and actively managing the change or redevelopment to reinforce this particular character. In other words, it is about understanding where in the building the particular architectural or historical significance lies, in order to guide change and updating to where it can most appropriately be inserted. 

Positive historic fabric
Constructive Conservation is particularly appropriate for school buildings. It means being positive about adaptation of the historic fabric where it is sensible to do so, in turn meaning that the building can continue to accommodate new equipment and uses. Such an approach ensures that the inspirational surroundings offered by historic buildings are not denied to future generations of students, while also reusing finite resources in the interests of sustainability. Understanding the existing buildings should be the starting point for all projects involving historic school buildings – both in terms of what makes them significant from a heritage perspective, but also how they have been used and what has worked well in an educational sense. 

Once this has been undertaken, establishing what is possible in terms of modern methods of teaching within the envelope of the historic building is much more straightforward. Development can use what is special about the buildings as its cue. Preparation of listed building strategies such as that put into place by Sheffield City Council is the kind of groundwork that can eliminate significant elements of risk by ensuring that there are no heritage issues that come to light when proposals are fully developed or construction is underway. They can ensure that everyone involved knows where the sensitive buildings are, which needed to be treated with care and conversely which are of lesser significance in heritage terms.

School buildings are no different from any other type of historic building, in that they need regular investment and systematic maintenance to ensure that they remain fit for purpose. So, projects aiming to refurbish, remodel or extend existing buildings shouldn’t be seen as a second best option to new-build – they can ensure the retention of architecturally significant buildings and existing character and distinctiveness, while at the same time providing extra floor space, high tech teaching space and flexible or multi-purpose learning environments.

Further information
A range of successful case studies and detailed guidance on refurbishing historic school buildings can be found at 
www.helm.org.uk/historicschools