Milton Keynes College

Named by students ‘The Smartie Building’, a new Learning Resource Centre and main entrance link to an existing building, creating a new collegiate quad.

The strategic design to position the building separate from existing administrative and social centres solved the College’s security and circulation problems, whilst also ensuring the new facility is future-proof for intended campus redevelopment.

The LRC is behind the curved facade, almost solid to minimize solar gain and traffic noise. Clad in vertical Larch boards, the drum is a background for “Milton Keynes College” spelt out in Braille letters, the ‘Smartie’ dots. Some dots are porthole windows to the LRC, where they appear in amongst the bookshelves.

The building also contains an ICT drop-in centre and multi-purpose teaching areas, which are housed in the rectangular block facing the quad. The links to the existing building provide for a number of breakout spaces, with wall space for display of student work.

The use of timber cladding forms part of the overall sustainable design approach, which achieved BREEAM Excellent.