Learning from Schools: Abbeygate Sixth Form College

Students became co-researchers as we returned to Abbeygate Sixth Form College, five years on, to evaluate how it truly performs.

Learning from Schools is our ongoing research initiative dedicated to understanding how our education buildings perform in practice.

For our latest Post Occupancy Evaluation, we returned to Abbeygate Sixth Form College in Bury St Edmunds, inviting students to become co-researchers through our Access to Architecture mentoring programme. This allowed students to measure and critique their own learning environments gives us genuine, user-led insights.

Led by plusZero, our in-house sustainability team, the report explores thermal comfort, daylighting and spatial flexibility, revealing where design intentions succeeded and where real-world experience challenged widely held industry guidance and assumptions.

Read the full report here.