A number of projects have been undertaken for South Craven Academy Trust including the Fells Building, sixth form centre, sports pitches, sports hall and dynamic simulation modelling.

The Fells Building

Rance Booth Smith have designed a £1.5million state-of-the-art two storey building providing a purpose built hall/performance theatre and a new learning resource centre for South Craven Academy Trust.

The ground floor contains the new school hall which, with the advantage of retractable tiered seating, is to be used for school assemblies, major school productions and large open events. The first floor accommodates a new learning resource centre which provides all the latest technologies as well as more traditional facilities to support sixth form students.

The building incorporates a monodraught system, a passive ventilation system drawing cool air, and uses a natural convection cycle to ventilate and cool the building and the large glass elevations to the north side of the building take maximum advantage of natural light while maintaining a temperate ambience. The roof has been designed to take photovoltaic panels.

Environmental Improvements at South Craven Academy Trust

Rance Booth Smith were appointed to carry out computer analysis on the existing 1960s single glazed classrooms at South Craven Academy Block A to evaluate improvements to the building's environmental performance. The existing classrooms were freezing in winter and excessively over heating in summer. The worst case classroom was achieving temperatures of over 28°c for over 18% of the time. By evaluating the design of the windows and reducing the amount of glazing we were able to put forward solutions that would reduce the students' dissatisfaction by 91.3% and reduce heating bills by 44.3%.

This was achieved by investigating strategies for improving ventilation, upgrading the thermal fabric, passive solar control and evaluation of the day lighting. The 2010 amendments to the Building Regulations require that solar control measures are now carried out prior to installing cooling in existing buildings.