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As RMJM’s first collaboration between its UK and US offices, the 13,000m2 building challenges the traditional notion of a sixth form college with state-of-the-art facilities for over 2,000 students. The sixth form will sit alongside the college’s multi award-winning Performance Academy and is RMJM’s fifth building for Newcastle College since 2002.The proposal assembles a range of cellular spaces including classrooms, staffrooms and teaching laboratories, into an ‘S’ shape. At the top of the ‘S’ sits a café and double height creative art zone and at the bottom, responding to the new entrance plaza at the heart of the scheme is the HIVE. The HIVE is a vertical social and experimental learning hub providing flexible informal spaces for students to engage with the learning process outside of the classroom. From intimate internet cafes to international classrooms; students and teachers will be able to collaborate from various locations in the building and around the world thanks to the latest teaching technologies.
A four storey black glass wall responds to the HIVE and a metallic gold clad “attic roof” wraps the creative art zone. Expanded exterior public space and ecological applications such as sedum roofing make the new sixth form college a responsible addition to the campus fabric.
Construction is due to start in February and scheduled to open in September 2010.