A new boarding house for Reddam House school in Berkshire has been awarded planning by Wokingham Borough Council. Designed by Haptic Architects for Inspired Education Group, the co-educational housing block will provide a new home away from home for up to 100 students, creating a contemporary addition to this educational site, embedded within 125 acres of historic woodland.
The Reddam House site encompasses a Victorian mansion house designed by architect Robert Kerr, a Jacobean style Grade II* listed schoolhouse, and a series of newer buildings located around landscaped courtyards. Haptic’s new boarding house is part of a two-phase development that will see the refurbishment of the school’s existing student accommodation, Drake House, and the creation of a new residential courtyard. The boarding house will deliver 48 en-suite twin rooms and staff accommodation with internal and external amenity spaces.
Inspired by the architecture of the existing schoolhouses, the façade of the new boarding house will reflect the rhythm of the fenestration of these historic buildings, while the material palette will reference the red brick, stone, and wood found across the estate. Interior spaces will connect to the verdant setting; large windows will offer expansive landscape views, the common room will feature a generous skylight, while an oculus will draw natural light into the vertical circulation space.
The architectural plan responds to a detailed Arboricultural Impact Assessment of the site’s protected treescape. In particular it celebrates a 22m tall Atlas Cedar Tree, which will provide a focal point on the western façade of the building and denote a generous entrance portico. A transparent thoroughfare will connect the building entrance to a tree-lined residential quad to the east of the building, which will offer informal seating and areas for relaxation.
Creating an exemplary sustainable development that responds to the site’s microclimate was a key component of the brief. The building is designed as a low-carbon structure with a high-performance façade and is targeting BREEAM Excellent upon completion. The architects used a ‘Low Carbon First’ approach to material selection and have incorporated passive measures into the design of heating, cooling, and ventilation systems. To increase biodiversity on the site, 173 trees will be planted to replace the 14 trees removed, while the main building and entrance canopies will feature a series of green roofs. To protect the roots of the protected Cedar, the ground floor will be raised and feature a lifted entrance.
Drake House, the current student accommodation block, is too outdated to accommodate future growth. It will continue to house students during construction of the new boarding house and will then be remodeled as part of a second phase of development.