Hatfield Interiors was appointed four years ago to design a new Construction Skills Centre for the London Borough of Camden. Camden had a temporary facility in Kings Cross and it needed a permanent location. The site of the new Skills Centre was on the HS2 site, just north of Euston Station.
The project had a long history. In 2015, Camden secured over 100 assurances from the government to help protect the lives and livelihoods of residents and businesses from the impact of HS2 construction. The Euston Skills Centre was one of these assurances, with Camden securing a commitment of £4.1m to support the construction and operation of the centre, along with further funding from the GLA to support the fitout and installation of Green Skills equipment.
The building is situated on the site of the old Maria Fidelis School overlooking the new HS2 station. The Euston Skills Centre occupies the lower two storeys of the building, and the upper four floors are designed to accommodate changing and welfare facilities for the workforce during the construction of the station.
In October 2023, the UK government announced that the HS2 development at Euston station would be scaled back to 6 platforms, saving £6.5bn. The station now has six platforms instead of the previously planned 11.
Built by the Mace Dragados joint venture the project was manufactured by offsite Specialist Company Premier Modular with the building’s exterior designed to make it look less like temporary accommodation blocks and blend in better with the local neighbourhood.
Camden was given a lease for the Centre, and it appointed Hatfield Interiors to design and deliver a new Construction Skills Centre. The brief was to design new facilities for 120 Students and 30 Staff to teach carpentry, plumbing and electrical skills to local students aged 16 and over.
The new centre includes workshop spaces, machine room, IT classrooms, meeting rooms, student welfare, CSCS exam room, lockers room, staff social spaces, and tutors rooms.
In 2023 Camden teamed up with United Colleges Group (UCG) as their Education Partner. Camden have a long standing and successful relationship with UCG whereby Camden runs and operates the buildings and manage the recruitment of students within the local catchment area and UCG provide the teaching and learning expertise.
Hatfield Interiors reviewed the design with UCG and made several amendments before it was signed off. The main change was the introduction of green skills bays to allow the teaching of new technologies such as photovoltaic cells, air source heat pumps and new boiler technologies. The Green Skills bays were located in the workshop areas and replaced many of the workbenches that were originally designed in this area.
Hatfield also carried out extensive coordination and integration with Mace Dragados and Premier Modular to ensure that the base building could accommodate the fit-out requirements of the Construction Skills Centre.
This included ensuring that the machine room has 3 Phase power infrastructure, strengthening the flooring so that Hatfield could design and install the security turnstiles, and dimensional coordination of drainage, power and IT. It developed a good working relationship with Mace Dragados and was very helpful to ensure that its fit out requirements were met.
Hatfield always imagine what it wants from a project, although many times it can become adversarial and contractual, so it was refreshing and enjoyable to get real and productive collaboration and coordination towards a common goal.
Euston Skills Centre was opened by Huw Merriman HS2 Minister, Camden Council Leader Georgia Gould, Stephen Davis Principal of United Colleges Group and Jules Pipe CBE Deputy Mayor of London.