Here follows a series of 15 pictures just taken, showing progress on the construction of our new 7 residence hall pavilions, both outside and inside. At the moment we are hoping for the building project to be completed by June of this year in order to open them for students, staff and guests in Sept. 2012.
View of the Pavilion site from the North Lawn.
Continue reading ‘Pavilion Project: Construction Update with Photos of Inside + Outside’
On October 10th 2011 started Brockwood’s first-ever online fundraising campaign and is due to end for logistical reasons on December 15th 2011. The target of this appeal is £25,000 and while it is ambitious, it is also the reality of how much such a beautiful new space will cost, even by doing much of it ourselves. We are very thankful to the numerous donations that have been coming in – you may follow progress, see much more, and donate here:
http://www.justgiving.com/PavilionProjectBeautifulNewLandscape
Below are two introductions to this exciting project, a short one from Co-principal Bill Taylor and a Design Brief from former Head Gardener, current Trustee Gary Primrose:
Continue reading ‘JustGiving – For a Beautiful New Garden at Brockwood: OUR FIRST ONLINE FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN’
It’s been an exciting month at Brockwood, not only did we start a new year with great new and returning students bringing positive energy into the place, but after many months of paving to way for the green oak structures of the Pavilions, three just went up! They’re beautiful – see for yourself:
Students, Mature Students and Staff taking a tour of the newly erected structures with Carpenter Oak Ltd.
Continue reading ‘New Pavilions Go Up!!!’
Brockwood had a presence at the Ecobuild fair held in London last week. This is the world’s largest exhibition of ecological building materials, equipment and practices and Carpenter Oak, the company building the green oak frames for the Pavilions at Brockwood, had a stand at the fair and had erected one of the completed frames. Towering over neighbouring stands the frame was a feature of the fair and attracted a lot of interest and positive comments from visitors. For those of us involved in the project it was an exciting moment to stand inside a Pavilion frame for the first time and to feel the sense of proportion, space and character that these buildings will have. Beneath the frame a prominent poster featured photos of Brockwood students on a recent school trip to Carpenter Oak working with craftsmen on the Pavilion frames. The Ecobuild fair also afforded an opportunity for us to look at ecological building materials, and equipment that might be suited to the Pavilions, the completion date of which is projected to be December of this year.
One of the seven green oak frames for the pavilion project.
This past week some of the staff and students were invited down to Devon to visit Carpenter Oak Ltd. where the timber frames for the Pavilion Project are currently being carved and constructed. We spent two days at Carpenter Oak learning about where the oak timber comes from, the sustainability of using wood versus other building materials, the design of the Pavilions, and getting our hands on some of the wood we will later be living in. In addition to visiting the beautiful Devon countryside and learning about Oak frame constructions techniques, it was a nice opportunity to get better acquainted with each other while engaging in hands on experience.
Continue reading ‘Brockwood’s Pavilion Project: Students & Staff Visit Carpenter Oak’
Hi, my name is Mike Davies, I’m an Architect by training, but not the Architect who designed the Pavilions. That was down to Mike Hope of Roderick James Architects in Totnes, Devon. I drafted the design brief that all Architects need, to help them in their task of designing a building. The brief is a document that tries to explain in detail the client’s requirements. It lists the range of room sizes for rooms of differing function, from rooms in staff accommodation, to student rooms that would have single, dual and occasionally triple occupancy. Bathrooms, shower rooms and storage areas also have to have area allocations. It is also important to try to explain how you see the building functioning in terms of circulation, security and practicality.
Continue reading ‘A True Story Behind the Pavilion Project from One of the Architects’
In September and October we started clearing work for the imminent beginning construction of the Pavilions.
We are excited, doing as much of the work as possible ourselves to reduce the costs, as we are still in need of fundraising quite a bit more for the completion of the project.
Amongst other things, you can see below many students volunteered to come and help when they had some free time from their studies:
Over the past four years, the staff and students at Brockwood Park have worked with the trustees of the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd. to develop a long-term estate strategy. We felt we needed to develop such a strategy to respond intelligently to the following challenges and opportunities: a) it was becoming increasing difficult to provide adequate accommodation for the full complement of 65 students and the optimal number of residential staff required to educate these 65 pupils; b) the trust was in receipt of a number of legacies that provided us with the rare opportunity to contemplate planning over and above ongoing operational costs; and c) the area around and including Brockwood was soon going to be declared a National Park, which would then have meant that no further new construction of any sort would have been feasible at Brockwood.
Continue reading ‘Looking Towards the Future of Brockwood Park’
