CONSTRUCTION and specialist fit-out contractor Thomas Johnstone Ltd (TJL) has handed over the new Outdoor Learning Hub to Harmeny Education Trust in Balerno.
The project has created a transformative space that has enabled the Trust to extend its capacity to support young people aged 14-18.
Located at the foot of the Pentland Hills, Harmeny Education Trust is a children’s charity providing education, care, and therapeutic support to young people with complex additional support needs due to early years trauma and adversity. The new Learning Hub serves as the centre point for the organisation’s extended, skilled-based secondary curriculum and outdoor learning.
Having successfully tendered to construct and fit-out the new hub in early 2022, TJL’s site team broke ground in November 2022.
Occupying an extended footprint of the former outdoor centre, the new Outdoor Learning Hub has been designed by Glasgow-based architects Loader Monteith with Studio SJM and is said to represent a ‘remarkable transformation’ from its predecessor.
The old outdoor centre, which TJL’s site team demolished before construction began, had limited functionality. The building was unusable during the year’s coldest months due to its unheated ‘lean-to’ construction, with concrete flooring and uninsulated timber walls.
Surrounded by an established woodland, the new Learning Hub will provide Harmeny’s young people with space to embrace nature and engage in outdoor, environmental, and expressive arts activities.
Constructed with a timber frame, the highly insulated new building comprises two main sections connected via an external breezeway. Half clad in European Larch, the building’s exterior will gradually weather over time to blend with its woodland surroundings. The rest of the building has been finished with around 15,000 Forum Smoked Branco facing bricks. TJL explained that the grey colour and light texture of the brick offsets the warmth of the Scottish Larch wood cladding.
Internally, Building 1 houses the main reception area, changing and drying rooms, and staff areas. Building 2 contains creative workshops, including an art & design studio, woodwork, and small engineering workshops. TJL’s manufactured joinery division created bespoke items for the interiors, including mobile workstations and hardwood countertops.
Gordon Cameron, regional commercial director at Thomas Johnstone Ltd, said, “The collaborative effort between Thomas Johnstone Ltd, Harmeny Education Trust and the wider design team reflects our commitment to delivering high-quality construction solutions that positively impact our communities.
“The Learning Hub’s environmentally conscious design by Loader Monteith with Studio SJM harmoniously blends with its natural surroundings. We are proud to have been the main contractor on this project and are excited to see the Outdoor Learning Hub’s impact on Harmeny’s young people: providing them with a supportive environment for future growth and learning.”
Neil Squires, Harmeny’s chief executive, added, “The children and young people in our care have experienced some of the most difficult starts in life. Previously, they had to leave Harmeny at age 14 – which is an incredibly disruptive experience at a vital time in their learning journey. With our new hub, Harmeny can now be there for them up to age 18 if they need it, and our young people now have the security they need to focus on their future and can continue to live and learn among friends and adults they have grown to trust.”
The project team also included Faithful & Gould (project management); Wardell Armstrong (landscape architect); Harley Haddow (structural engineer and M&E consultant); and Principal CDM (CDM co-ordinator).
