West Herts College

Education

Background

An ‘outstanding’ FE college, West Herts College is an impressive new build scheme located in Watford.

At 242,188 sq ft, the scope of our brief included teaching rooms, offices, reception, public spaces, cafe, training restaurant, hair and beauty salon, fitness suite, theatre, recording and TV studios.  The services we provided for this highly varied use of space included repositioning internal layouts; lighting and finishes; furniture and fixtures.

Our Solution

We wanted the college’s users to enjoy a space that felt more high street, than high school.  If you want people to behave like adults, it’s important that a space implicitly and explicitly treats them like adults.

We rejected ‘institutional’ furniture and introduced hard-wearing fixtures and finishes that combined durability with great design.

We provided a broad range of colour which served to differentiate functions and formed the basis of a way-finding system for the campus.

More neutral colours were used in the teaching environments to create a calmer, more contemplative space, whilst these areas also benefitted from flexibility of use.

Results

Here’s what the college’s principal, Elizabeth Rushton, thought, “We chose Monteith Scott because they saw what we could have, not what we did have.  They embraced the challenge of providing a design that would work for our many different service users.  Thanks to their passion and creativity, it was out with the old school, and in with a new class of learning facility.”