With book shelving the length of a football pitch, enough paint to fill two bath tubs and over 2km of cabling the brand new library at Bosworth Academy is complete. First damaged in the summer floods and then winner of a nationwide competition to refurbish part of their school building, the Academy nominated its library and adjoining classrooms for a transformational makeover courtesy of Styles & Wood, the property support services group, and their supply chain partners.
The library is firmly back at the heart of the school and has been renamed as The Compass. Designed as a vibrant research facility to encourage independent study and foster a love of reading, the project radically improves the tired 1960s building through a new layout, improved environmental control and a superior lighting scheme.
The Compass name was selected through ballot by the 1300 pupils at the school, who were involved from start to finish: putting together the original entry, creating design requirements and even briefing architects and engineers. Compass cleverly integrates new technology and the latest furniture designs into a flexible area divided into five key zones: research, presentation, independent study, reading and teaching. The Academy is investing in new technology – increasing the number of pcs, including a set of iPads, for use in The Compass. The catalogue of books within the library is expanding in parallel to keep the pages turning for pupils.
Simon Brown, Vice Principal at Bosworth Academy, said: “We started out wanting to encourage more children to use the library, for reading and study. But this refurbishment is so much better than we could ever have dreamt of or afforded out of school budgets. The Compass will help generations of students find the direction they need to be successful in whatever they want to do. We are hugely grateful to Styles & Wood for their vision and everything they have achieved.”
The makeover competition was part of Styles & Wood’s education offer, Revision and was run in conjunction with their community support programme. A team of employees has volunteered their time and expertise, coordinating 20 suppliers who donated their services. In total over 2,100 hours were worked on site to bring the student’s wish-list to life.
The company chose Bosworth because of the passion they demonstrated. Having recently become an academy they clearly showed they were taking their future into their own hands. According to Gideon Levene, Head of Education within Styles and Wood, the student video put together for the entry was particularly inspirational. He comments: “This has been a challenging refurbishment project, keeping disruption to a minimum in a fully working school. We saw huge potential in the library and used our expertise in refurbishment including ventilation, acoustics and design to create an amazing space to inspire the students. We believe refurbishment is an exciting process to transform spaces, it is what we do and we do it well. The Compass should build aspirations for young people in Bosworth for years to come.”
Below you can see our stop motion video of the whole development from start to finish: