The Denison Building is a teaching and administration building at the Royal School of Military Engineering in Chatham. It is CLASP building – a system devised in the 1950s by local authorities for providing quick and simple prefabricated building solutions for use in the public sector – and had been altered and updated very little since it was constructed in around 1967.

Our brief was to update the building and improve its thermal performance. We opted to remove the original timber and single-glazed cladding and replace it with an aluminium curtain wall system, with high-performance glazing to the south elevation and brise soleil to give solar shading. Internally the building was fully refurbished, with new mechanical and electrical services, and improved ventilation to the teaching spaces. The teaching rooms included a number of laboratories, workshops and a lecture theatre, all of which were re-fitted as part of the contract.