Green Skills Academy

YMD Boon were appointed to develop and deliver the College of West Anglia’s concept proposals for the new Green Skills Academy at their Wisbech Campus, with funding from the Combined Authority’s Recycled Local Growth Fund and the Anglian Water @ One Alliance.

The Green Skills Academy development is located on a vacant plot of land to the west of the main campus. The concept for the Green Skills Academy building provides new teaching workshops and studios to support developing skills required for green industries and technologies as net zero moves forward. The facility contains 3 teaching workshops, material storage bays and ancillary areas on the ground floor and a multi-use teaching studio, office and further ancillary areas on the first floor.

The sustainable building includes photovoltaic panels and charging batteries to power the centre, and an air source heat pump will heat and cool the building. The centre will have 10% better insulation standards than those set out in building regulations, making it highly energy efficient. The technologies and monitoring equipment in the building will themselves be used to support learning.

Some of the space is double height, allowing for retrofitting of energy efficiency and renewable energy installations on buildings, including the solar panels on roofs. The space will also be used for educational training to fly drones which can be used for building surveying and thermal imagining.