John Wheatley College, East End Campus, Glasgow

Post Occupancy: Changes Made As A Result Of Feedback

The development of the East End campus has taken on board lessons learned from an earlier development at the Easterhouse Campus.

The previous building included demountable walls to increase flexibility of space configuration. It was found that they were not used in practice and allowed noise transmission so the new development is aiming to build in flexibility simply by having a range of different sized spaces with fixed walls.

External building colour will be derived from light sources rather than paint in the expectation that this will reduce vandalism.

Colour is being used as a means of tracking furniture since users tend to move a lot of furniture without returning it to its original location - this is very useful from an auditing perspective.

The College has also built on its success in using collaborative partnerships to raise funding and deliver better services to the community. The Easterhouse Campus development included a partnership with the local authority who built a multi-purpose facility including a library. The College and the Council library combined and is run by the Council and is used by the College and the public. The library provides a direct link between swimming and other recreation facilities and the College. Similarly at East End Campus the new library is library to which the public have access.

The College has made certain decisions based on observation of facilities elsewhere including separating social and work space for staff whilst bringing together social and library space for students. The anti-drumming roof - providing soundproofing from heavy rainfall was included in the development as a result of the experiences of other buildings in the sector where external noise had created a major impact.

Planning of storage space has been an important element of the development - particularly as the Easterhouse Campus did not provide as much as the College might have liked. Creative approaches to storage have emerged, an example of which can be seen in the Construction area where the mock chimney breasts in the painting skills area double as storage cupboards for stepladders and other equipment.

Other acoustic and soundproofing provision includes acoustic boards throughout the space to cut the levels of reverberation - feedback from hearing aid users has been very positive. All doors have acoustic seals that cut out all corridor noise.

In the staff preparation space the IT area has high desks and stools as well as lower tables and chairs. The high desks have proved not to be so popular with users and are about to be changed for lower versions.

Also in the staff area everyone works in an open plan space. Requests have been made for some desk dividers to provide more privacy. These will now be trialled in some areas to assess the impact.