News

Bond Bryan Architects are delighted to have won the Hertfordshire Building Futures Highly Commended category of the Project of the Year Award for our Ware Campus (Phase 2) project.

This scheme is the final phase in the redevelopment of the Ware Campus, creating a high quality facility, sensitively designed around a new, landscaped courtyard.

The new three-storey, double-aspect building provides 3,600 sq.m. of high quality teaching and learning space, primarily for the Creative Arts and Industries Department; the creation of a building – which brings together creative disciplines and encourages collaboration and cross-fertilization of ideas – is at the core of the design approach.

The building is modern yet contextually sensitive; at the eastern end of the main wing, the ridgeline steps down to reduce the scale and massing and links with the more domestic scale of the College’s historic Grade II* Listed Building – Amwell House.
A simple palette of brick and render with a standing seam roof complement the existing campus buildings, helping them to appear as a cohesive development.

At the heart of the building, a double-height gallery space, with glazed curtain walling, fronts onto the courtyard, creating a high-quality flexible space to both showcase students’ work and host internal and external events. Radiating from the gallery is a wide range of specialist teaching and learning rooms, as well as incidental spaces that provide opportunities for informal meetings and collaboration. The internal spaces are naturally ventilated and roof lights create light and airy studio spaces; the exposed concrete adds to a rich mix of internal finishes.

Bruce Raw, Director at Bond Bryan’s Sheffield Studio said: “We are delighted that our design, for the completion of Hertford Regional College’s Ware Campus, has been recognised in the Hertfordshire Building Futures Awards for Project of the Year. This is the second time that Bond Bryan Architects’ work at Hertford Regional College has won a Building Futures Award and we feel that this is a fantastic recognition of the effect that excellent learning environments can have on the future of training and the development of skills in the region. This project is the successful culmination of a working relationship between our team and the College that has developed over 10 years. We are delighted with this highly-commended award and to have completed the designs for the transformation of the College’s Ware Campus.”

Judges commented: “We were most impressed by the consistency and continuity of the design of this campus, its new courtyard and Creative Arts building. For young people, it seemed to be a wonderful place to learn, providing institutional comfort, gallery space, with great transparency and verve in the treatment of the teaching spaces. An excellent backdrop for the visual arts. This exceptional building is the final piece of the college strategy. The students love it.”