Introduction

Following the demise of the Building Schools for the Future programme, and the removal and replacement of several other national educational frameworks, design teams have experienced major changes in how schools are procured and delivered. New budgets, timescales and engagement processes have significantly affected the role of every discipline involved in designing and raising an educational building.

Reduced funding has increased the importance of fittings, furniture and equipment (FFE) within each project. Previously, FFE design and selection was a discipline that fell under the radar, seemingly having much less influence on the final design. Now we see a greater reliance on interior design and carefully chosen equipment to make more of a visual statement than ever before, particularly where existing buildings are being remodelled or refurbished. It is important to give clients learning environments that feel highly creative and accessible, and that deliver great value and flexibility. FFE can contribute significantly to how a new school looks, feels and is used.

In order for new learning spaces to be functional they must also be flexible, versatile, adaptable and agile. It is important that the FFE in every space, whether a classroom or a social space, delivers for staff and students while integrating and coordinating with the building.

Exciting, design-led and technically delivered spaces should disrupt the status quo and offer learners new and innovative ways to use and improve their working environments.

Getting started

FFE is no longer just about designing interiors and specifying furniture, it is about creating learning environments that work for now and for the future. Education is an ever-changing landscape and that brings its own challenges in how we design spaces that are flexible enough for the long term. Good interior design can be a quick and effective way of helping users to manage new situations, for example when relocating, downsizing or expanding, or when they need to adapt or change how a space is used.

The design team for any school project should be friendly, straight talking and approachable, able to demystify the process and provide jargon-free communications. Even where budgets are challenging, it is important to provide genuine choice as this creates greater user experiences, builds ownership and allows clients to express themselves and their preferences.

All new projects should include a comprehensive initiation process and a close working relationship between the FFE specialists, the educationalist and other design team members. Early meetings and workshops with the nominated architects and other design team members, including facilities management colleagues, are imperative. They are the ones who will focus on FFE longevity and life cycle cost, and will wish to avoid a situation which results in ‘buy cheap, buy twice’. Fully exploring the client brief and the programme of deliverables at this stage will create buy-in to the FFE project deadlines and key milestones, and develop a solid understanding of how they coincide with the build programme.

The right information at the right time

There is a good deal of information available at the start of any design project. This may include a facilities output specification, specialist equipment lists, area data sheets, a schedule of accommodation and school specific design brief. As well as the technical specifications it is important that the FFE consultant understands the style of teaching and learning the school wants to deliver. Early access to the client team will inform how they design the spaces, maximising the use of available space and getting the best from the budget.

As projects are now required to be delivered in condensed timescales and to more prescriptive specifications, they require designers to interpret many documents and to be able to track changes to the requirements of the bidder’s proposals. This means the design team has to manage vast amounts of information and there is a danger that something important will be missed. The development of electronic databases as a platform where information can be shared and managed has been a positive asset to the design team, including the FFE consultants. Software such as Activeplan can be used to develop a Schedule of Accommodation and supporting Area Data Sheets. This includes the FFE from first principles, or can be used to import the data from a fully coordinated model against which the design is developed and managed. It makes the checking process and compiling of project information faster and more efficient, and creates and manages versions of both client’s requirements and contractor’s proposals. This has the advantage of ensuring that the information required at the building handover stage is created at the beginning of the project. It also compiles a database that school Facilities Managers will inherit at the end of the project.

Being creative – despite the budget

Large procurement frameworks tend to encourage the development of a consistent palette of products where quality and cost are tested and can be used across a number of similar projects. However, it is still possible to deliver creativity by providing a range of base products that also have the flexibility to be customised for individual schools. With clever specification even the smallest budget can be used wisely resulting in aesthetically pleasing school spaces.

At St Ambrose College, for example, Spacezero designed the ‘rock and pebble’ desking solution. There were no commercially available, affordable solutions that fully met the school’s requirements for teaching in a range of group sizes. The design featured the smaller satellite ‘pebble’ tables docking with the larger central ‘rock’ table, allowing the tables to tessellate and form a variety of configurations for small or large group and individual work.

St Ambrose College also required a teaching lectern – a multifunctional teacher base that could be fully integrated with technology and allow for different presentation styles. Nothing matched the school’s specific requirements so a bespoke solution was designed resulting in an ergonomic, serviceable and robust product that could be colour-matched to the school’s pastoral houses.

Using furniture to create separation between spaces can also be a more affordable and flexible solution than building in movable walls or partitions. Spacezero have created feature tables with tall slab ends that replace two legs, extending past the table top to form a high screen. Other solutions include simply using an extended upholstered seating backrest to create a low height ‘wall’. A more complex example of this is the ‘spine wall’ at Witton Park School that was used to control circulation within a large atrium space. At the same time it was a functioning part of the library, incorporating pod-style seating, display, power and data points.

At the present time very few project budgets allow for the specification of statement or bespoke school furniture. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing – get it wrong and it can be an expensive mistake. However, where a required solution is not readily available as an affordable off-the-shelf product, it is still worth exploring whether the FFE consultant can find a creative solution.

FFE as a backdrop to learning

The current focus on robust and functional FFE that provides value for money does not mean a sense of aesthetics should be lost. Even with smaller budgets there are many ways to make the environment more appealing. Materiality is often the cure for an institutional environment, promoting creative learning by surrounding the learners with a thought-provoking backdrop.

Walls, floors and ceilings are all wonderful opportunities to apply different textures, colours and graphics. Vertical and horizontal surfaces can provide a canvas for exploration, innovation and visual learning to take place without necessarily incurring great expense. The challenge is convincing the school to be brave enough to invest the budget and embrace what is not the norm.

Gateacre School’s Olive Cafe, a focal point within their large atrium space, has a banquette seating unit that houses a live olive tree. The vertical and horizontal surfaces in the space are completely covered in artificial turf to reinforce the concept of bringing the outdoors in, and introduce colour and texture to an otherwise visually neutral palette. This has proven to be a successful space for student gatherings and collaborations and is a social area they enjoy using.

In addition to the more familiar use of colour to create feature-walls or the application of typographic solutions to signpost faculties or departments, different sorts of images can be used to create interest. For example, large images of iconic local landmarks or landscapes can be applied to standard units and roller racking systems in learning resource centres, giving the illusion of internal vistas.

Bringing the space to life

For clients who may struggle to visualise what a new space might look like, the FFE consultant will have a number of tools that can support them. For example, if the school wants a storage wall but this is proving too expensive, arranging the loose FFE to demonstrate a storage wall and then visualising the proposal in a 3D drawing can help them to see how it would work and whether it would meet their needs.

To really understand the functionality required for each learning space the FFE consultant will visualise how each area of the school will look and function. Using 1:50 engagement sheets, including 2D and 3D outputs with mood boards and supporting design rationale, this will make absolutely sure that the client understands the proposals and can comment on them in detail.

This can be supported later in the process, when the design is agreed, with hand sketches, colour renders or even 3D panoramic visualisations. A consistent level of quality output throughout the design phase is imperative. It ensures the client not only understands what is being proposed but that the end result meets their expectations.

Creating a project-specific product catalogue ensures the end users are happy with the proposed selection before delivery and installation. In some instances creating a sample classroom environment can be very helpful. This involves repurposing a space in the existing school and providing a variety of new sample equipment for the stakeholders to touch and feel, approve and recommend. Using these spaces to deliver lessons also helps them to explore whether the proposed products are suitable. If this is not appropriate or possible, organising individual samples to be delivered to the school to review, or hosting visits to various manufacturers’ showrooms are helpful alternatives.

The selection of furniture and equipment is a byproduct of good interior and FFE design. Knowing the school’s various teaching methods, styles and requirements (such as how much they use ICT) influences the design of the space and ultimately the selection of furniture. The end user is more often than not looking for inspiration as to how they can make their estate work harder for them, while giving them a great environment within which to work and learn. They often have high expectations for every element of the project. It is critical that they are willing to be open minded and are prepared to be challenged in their thinking. At the same time they should not being afraid to question the design team’s proposal in order to get the outcome they need.

Learning from the workplace

Within a market that is only just starting to recover from a deep recession there are significant trends that are impacting on the workplace and resultant furniture specification. The UK is usually an early adopter of new ways of working and consequently a global workplace trendsetter. Looking to what is happening in other environments, including workplaces and higher education settings, helps to further bridge the gap between learning and working environments. Creating key education spaces that mimic the world of commerce and academia will help to ease the transition as students move from school to further study or employment.

Living with legacy furniture

Current funding can mean that schools are required to take their existing furniture and equipment to their new building. This use of ‘legacy’ furniture means there is not always the opportunity to introduce much new FFE immediately. Yet it is still important to help the school make the best of the situation. The school may find their furniture has been gradually replaced over time and this can give rise to a potential cacophony of mismatched furniture. This situation isn’t uncommon and certainly not insurmountable. It is the test of good design to use existing FFE in the right places, and to advise the client on how to spend any future funding to get maximum effect.

There is a huge misconception that legacy equipment is free and simply means that the schools can save the money that might be required for new purchases by repurposing existing FFE. This may well be true at a gross level, but there is now also a disproportionate amount of time being spent on analysing legacy equipment reports, undertaking new condition surveys, and integrating the data captured into the design model to allow accurate costing.

Reports are provided by the schools and the technical adviser on most projects but, unfortunately, there can be a lack of consistency in the quality and format of the data produced. To adequately manage the potential risks of using legacy FFE, the contractors and consultants must undertake their own reports or, as a minimum, apply a contingency to the FFE budget to cover legacy equipment that may not survive to journey.

It is therefore very important to agree a legacy strategy early in the project to avoid confusion and focus minds on where to allocate the available budget for new equipment.

Emerging technology is a powerful ally to the accurate and efficient data capture, and the use of a powerful ‘app builder’ allows consultants to design their own field data collection survey software, which runs on iPads. This allows a school-wide, room-by-room, product-by-product condition survey to take place, assigning a location, a unique product code, photograph, dimensions, description and status to every item ready for integration into the preferred design. This level of detail and accuracy gives comfort that the legacy equipment has been fully understood and, where it is to be moved over, how it will be accommodated in the new design.

Using technology – why BIM?

Building Information Management (BIM) is an industry term used by many, understood by few and used effectively by even less. There is a great deal of talk about BIM in the building industry at present. But what is it?

BIM is a multitude of things – a coordinated set of processes, supported by technology, that add value through creating, managing and sharing the properties of an asset throughout its life cycle. It provides accurate and detailed information and enables earlier decision making. It also creates a collaborative, proactive working environment for the design team. BIM provides an accelerated and improved workflow, enables better and more accurate integration and coordination of the building, ICT, FFE and services.

As a by-product it helps provide photorealistic visuals and this speeds up the approval process by providing a better visual explanation for clients of what they are getting from the project. If BIM is used to its potential it can provide a true representation of the proposed FFE products, embedded with detailed manufacturer and product information.

Adopting BIM has created a whole new world of opportunity for the FFE consultant to work more closely with architects and design team consultants, providing a better understanding of the structure, services and how we collectively integrate furniture and equipment into the building. In some instances by combining FFE with ICT, small power and data, plus other elements of services and structure, the loaded plans can be used as the lead document for engagement, creating a slicker, faster more powerful and accurate process.

Conclusion

FFE must be considered at the beginning of the design process and should sit at the top table with the architects and other design team members, as opposed to an afterthought or a bill of quantities at the back end of the construction phase. A lack of a coordinated approach will only result in badly integrated buildings with many errors during installation and, at that stage of the process, the polar opposite of a soft landing.

Spaces need to be designed to be functional, comfortable and conducive to learning – much more than just providing ‘adequate’ FFE. We need to consider how colour, texture and graphics affect the learning environment and the learner. Unfortunately, in some projects, the FFE budget is ‘low hanging fruit’ when there is a need to fill a hole in the budget elsewhere. Ring-fencing money for FFE at the start of the process will ensure there is sufficient budget to deliver what the client needs at the end.

Educating the end client in understanding the benefit and necessity of timely decision making, and its impact on manufacturing and the delivery process, is important. Embracing BIM, recognising its ability to assist in providing accurate and reliable data, helps speed up the sign-off process. Leaving decisions and sign-off until the last minute causes chronic spikes in manufacture, which ultimately impact installation. This snowball effect can be curtailed by signing off months in advance. Getting the right people involved at the right time can make the process much more seamless and far less problematic.

Using FFE budgets well, no matter how big or small they are and no matter whether you are revamping an existing school or building new, can energise spaces and make staff and students feel more positive about their environment. Having the right equipment, ensuring teaching spaces have maximum flexibility, and creating comfortable social areas, can directly support the school’s ethos and vision and give a strong sense of identity and community. This is an area where a relatively small investment really can make a huge difference.