Sports and music building is school’s new ‘shopfront’

Six colours of translucent polycarbonate rainscreen cladding have enabled architects to create a ‘unique shopfront’ for a new-look school, featuring graphic silhouettes of sportspeople, musicians and dancers.

Architect Jacobs specified 200m² of Rodeca’s double-height Kristall wall panels as outer and inner faces in varying hues of blue and green for the new £3.2 million sports and music building at Mandeville School in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

The steel-framed two-storey building includes an entrance foyer, four changing rooms, dance/fitness and music studios and administration offices.

The 3,430mm-long Rodeca panels are said to be 200 times tougher than glass as well as potentially half as light (m² of double-glazed 4mm glass + spacer bar + sealant at a total 22kg versus a 60mm polycarbonate panel system of 8kg/m²).

Architect Anthony Corke says: ‘The dance, fitness and staff areas all face the main entrance to the school. We wanted to provide these spaces with as much light as possible but still retain privacy. The Rodeca product allowed us to achieve both of these factors. The colour change in it also allowed us to create a unique shopfront to the school.’