Standard Specifications, Layouts and Dimensions for School Buildings
This series of guidance notes set out the standards of performance for a range
of elements in schools and show how these standards might be delivered through
design examples. The aim is to disseminate best practice and avoid
'reinventing the wheel' every time a school building is designed, so
that consistently high quality environments can be delivered, offering best
whole-life value for money.
School building clients, their professional advisers, contractors and their supply chains should use the guidance to inform their decisions at the early stages of a project's development — whether new build, extension or refurbishment.
To help encourage take up, this guidance will become the standard in Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme documentation and the Government will expect it to be adopted in the majority of situations where it is reasonable and appropriate to do so. While we would expect projects to comply with the standards, other solutions — possibly based on new products or technologies, or reflecting local factors — may equally comply with the performance specification and could be used. We do not want to stifle innovation by being too prescriptive.
Though principally aimed at secondary school building projects delivered through the BSF programme, the specifications and solutions may also apply to other educational buildings.
The documents currently available in the series are:
- SSLD 1: Partitions in Schools
- SSLD 2: Floor Finishes in Schools
- SSLD 3: Toilets in Schools
- SSLD 4: Lighting Systems in Schools
- SSLD 5: Roof Coverings in Schools
- SSLD 6: Internal Stairways in Schools
- SSLD 7: Internal Doorsets in Schools
- SSLD 8: Sprinklers in Schools
For further details, contact capital.schools@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
Selected presentations from the official launch event at the RIBA on 12 May:
- Welcome and Overview from Chairman — Richard Ogden, Chairman of Buildoffsite
- Policy context and SSLD Overview (selected slides) — Alan Jones, DCSF
- CABE view on standardisation and offsite — Richard Simmons, Chief Executive of CABE (three-part presentation)
- Lessons for standardisation in NHS LIFT projects — Graham Spence, LIFT Innovation Programme and Knowledge Transfer Manager and Adam Harridence, Knowledge Manager Community Health Partnerships Ltd
- Step change through standardisation — John Dyson, Director of Resource and Capital, GlaxoSmithKline
- Making SSLD happen, the design perspective (selected
slides) — Beech Williamson, PfS and Michal Cohen of Walters and Cohen
Architects (three-part presentation)
Last updated: 28 May 2008
