Kinnoull Primary School

Ochil delivers gymnasium and classrooms in home grown timber

When Perth & Kinross Council (PKC) wanted to provide a new gymnasium and classroom for Kinnoull Primary School in Perthshire, built to the highest environmental and energy performance standards, they specified Ochil Timber’s innovative SpaceStud system, manufactured in home grown Scottish timber.

Against the constraints of a tight site with only one access point, PKC designed a new gymnasium building and one two-storey classroom using SpaceStud, and also specified cladding in untreated Scottish larch. Ochil designed and supplied all the components for Kinnoull Primary– floors, walls and roofs- and used high performance timber fibreboard insulation. In all the company supplied 52 SpaceJoists, 40 SpaceRafters, and 210 individual SpaceStuds consisting of 736 lm of stud.

Key challenges for Ochil were the need to manufacture the OSB-lined structural studs to 5m and 6m heights to meet the specification for the gymnasium; and the difficulties of delivering these, and the other components, to the extremely tight site.

MD Andrew McAree explains the solution: “We individually cut all the studs and components to size off site and delivered them as “Ikea-type” flat packs to site, complete with full design drawings, so they could be easily erected, like a huge jigsaw puzzle.”

Neil Smyth, Construction Director with Morrison Construction, the main contractors on the job, expands on Andrew’s point, saying: “The “buildability” of Ochil’s system was very helpful on what was a particularly tight site at Kinnoull and it certainly was effective in meeting the brief on air tightness and thermal performance.”

PKC’s Architect Jana Boult is clearly delighted with Kinnoull’s completed gymnasium and classrooms: “It’s a lovely little building,” she says “warm, modern, efficient and environmentally friendly.”