Championing the government’s £45bn ‘Building Schools for the Future’ (BSF) agenda, Interbuild is hosting a live school at the 2008 show (Sunday 26th through to Thursday 30th October). Tapping into the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ (DCSF) initiative – which is helping to drive the school building programme -Interbuild will explore how the construction industry can contribute to the delivery of quicker, more cost effective and sustainable design and build to meet ongoing project targets.

Modular structure specialists, Built Offsite, are supplying the bespoke, open plan classroom facility which will take pride of place in Interbuild’s newly created area, ‘The Village’. Here the school will sit alongside several other structures, showcasing the very highest building standards. Using cutting edge offsite construction techniques, The Village will comprise elements spanning both public and private sector concerns, but with an emphasis on meeting government requirements. Furthermore, all of the structures within The Village have been specially designed to be erected for the event and will then go on to be used in real life schemes at the close of the show.

“Volumetric modular methods of construction have a huge part to play in the government’s current school building drive,” says Built Offsite’s Managing Director, Richard Pierce. “There is a growing need for additional teaching space and offsite construction not only offers the means to deliver solutions more quickly than traditional building methods, but to an exceptionally impressive quality of build. I welcome the opportunity to demonstrate our full capabilities at Interbuild and the fact that this classroom will then be used in an actual school gives local authorities a rare chance to see the latest technologies in-situ and to full scale, within an exhibition environment.”

Occupying a substantial 200 metre square space, The School will comprise two classroom modules, a WC, Kitchen and storage area. The external envelope will incorporate a wide variety of modern building materials, while the internal will be fully kitted-out to accommodate a class of expectant school children, invited to attend Interbuild and participate in lessons throughout the course of the show.

“This is an extremely topical initiative which is already generating a high level of interest,” says Interbuild’s Senior Marketing Manager, Sam Matthews. “Thanks to the valuable support of leading specialist offsite consultants Mtech Group, who engaged Built Offsite’s involvement in the initiative, our presence in this area is growing year-on-year and at Interbuild 2008 we’ve gone all-out to push the boundaries and deliver content that will challenge, inspire and inform the current political agenda.”