PRESS RELEASE: DLA Architecture Submits Oaklands College Masterplan for Planning.

Oaklands: A Further Education transformation funded by local, much-needed housing.

DLA Architecture has completed the planning submission for the extended masterplan for Oaklands College. This has been submitted jointly with the plans for new houses being developed by Taylor Wimpey to create a ground-breaking, housing-enabled masterplan that replaces outdated facilities at Oaklands College with a new, state-of-the-art Further Education teaching campus.

In this pioneering partnership, this education reinvestment for Oaklands’ College Campus is funded by the delivery of 470 new homes allocated in the Local Plan. This enabling development allows Oaklands College to replace deteriorating buildings with world-class facilities without the need for public borrowing, while simultaneously delivering much-needed new housing and community benefits for St Albans. The scheme includes affordable housing that is fully aligned with adopted Council policy.

As a major economic contributor employing more than 500 staff, Oaklands College plays a vital role in the district’s social and skills economy. This redevelopment represents much more than a campus upgrade; it is a strategic investment in the social and economic fabric of St Albans, securing high-quality Further Education provision for future generations.A decade of design and delivery, with award-winning buildings already completed.
Paving the way for a full campus renewal, over the last several years, DLA has already designed and delivered three major buildings. Nine new buildings are proposed as part of an extensive facility-led masterplan, connected by landscape improvements, which will enhance the Green Belt setting and maximise the capital investment on new teaching environments.

A crucial part of the masterplan has been shaping a series of buildings that serve dual purposes, delivering outstanding educational spaces while also enriching community life and generating new revenue opportunities for the College.

Completed

• The Homestead: Modern student accommodation supporting elite sports academies and learners travelling from across the region.
• The Evolution Centre: A general teaching building providing high-quality classrooms, IT and science spaces, and new landscaped public realm.
• The Construction Centre: Award-winning Construction Education facility, where the structure, services, pipework, and material junctions are intentionally left exposed. Students learn not just in the building, but from it, understanding how components integrate, how materials perform, and how construction sequencing works on a live building .
• Sports Pavilion: A High Performance centre including a Gym, studio, therapy, changing facilities

The New Oaklands Campus Masterplan

The masterplan will renew Oaklands College’s teaching estate, replacing fragmented sheds and legacy buildings with a cohesive, contemporary FE campus across 200 acres. Delivered over the next decade, it brings together specialist teaching buildings, landscaped spaces, external learning landscapes, and improved movement routes along a central pedestrian spine. Landscaped courtyards, outdoor classrooms, and sensory gardens extend teaching outdoors, while consolidated servicing improves safety and clarity. The result is a welcoming, adaptable, future-ready campus shaped around people. By transforming the layout, landscaping and learning environment, the masterplan establishes Oaklands as a campus that embodies modern education, civic and local community value, integration and environmental ambition.

DETAILED ELEMENTS & TEACHING ZONES

Animal Management & Zoo

A purpose-built, publicly accessible teaching zoo with classrooms, laboratories, a climatically controlled biome, aquatics, invertebrate and exotics rooms, mammal rooms, and high-quality external enclosures,  replacing the outdated series of joined-up agricultural sheds currently on site.

Designed as a modern teaching and learning environment, the new Animal Management & Zoo facility replaces outdated agricultural sheds with a purpose-built, publicly accessible teaching zoo. A reception, exhibition space, events room, and teaching classroom support learning and engagement, alongside veterinary and specialist preparation areas. Designed for both education and public access, the zoo becomes a year-round resource for schools, youth groups, and a visitor attraction for the wider St Albans community.

Creative Gateway Building

This new building will form the new main entrance to the College and establish the civic heart of the campus. It will include a reception and café, Digital Learning Centre (modern library), flexible Forum for exhibitions, performances and events, art, film, media and performance studios, senior staff base and conference facilities, all articulated with sculptural terraces and a lantern element marking the campus centre. Together, these uses will support teaching, student life, leadership and external engagement within a central, multi-functional hub.

A new High Needs (SEND) Centre

will provide a purpose-built specialist facility for 16–19-year-olds with complex learning, behavioural and medical needs. Three teaching wings will accommodate different levels of need, with sensory rooms for emotional regulation, dedicated life skills rooms replicating domestic environments, and therapy and medical spaces providing controlled, private rooms for clinical care and wellbeing support.

The Film Studio will be a professional-grade facility designed to support Oaklands’ expanding creative media and production courses, while strengthening links with Hertfordshire’s film and TV industry. It will include a full-scale soundstage, production planning, editing and post-production suites, green rooms, changing areas, preparation spaces, and a production forecourt, supporting industry-standard workflows and, by proxy, providing a pipeline of skilled talent into the regional screen sector.

The new Sports Hall

will be a competition-capable facility supporting Oaklands’ elite sports academies and its reputation as a national sports centre. With competition-standard dimensions, high clearances, specialist finishes, spectator seating, and supporting accommodation, it will host training, fixtures, tournaments, regional championships, and academy fixtures, operating in synergy with external pitches and athletics facilities.

Refectory (Refurbishment & Remodelling)

The Refectory will be refurbished and remodelled as a transformed social heart for students, with a modern canteen, relaxed lounge, fully equipped catering kitchen, and new landscape connections to outdoor seating, terraces, and green spaces. Enhanced circulation, daylight, visibility, and flexible seating will support everything from socialising and informal study to revision and meetings.

Mansion House is being carefully refurbished and reconfigured as a key heritage asset providing staff offices, meeting rooms, and a suite of conference and events spaces. It will play an active role in college life while also creating opportunities for direct revenue generation through external meetings, training, corporate away-days and community functions, supporting long-term campus sustainability.

 Estates & Deliveries

A consolidated servicing zone freeing the central campus for pedestrian-first movement.

OUTLINE ELEMENTS (Future Phases)

A consolidated Estates & Deliveries zone will free the central campus for pedestrian-first movement, while future outline phases will bring forward a major sports, wellbeing and outdoor-learning expansion, including cricket facilities, 4G rugby pitch, athletics track, games courts, hockey and multi-sports pavilion, cycle centre, pump track, skate park, new loop road, energy centre and refuse and recycling.

SUMMARY

Oaklands represents a Further Education transformation fully funded by local, much-needed housing.

This approach provides a real-time, adaptable framework demonstrating how addressing the housing crisis can simultaneously strengthen and secure the future of Further Education. At a time when many young people do not see university as their preferred route, this exemplar shows how strategic reinvestment in FE can create meaningful pathways into skills, training, and employment.

By delivering both high-quality new homes and a future-proofed FE estate, the Oaklands model illustrates how housing and education can work hand in hand. It also creates the tools for local enterprise, community formation, and long-term economic participation, ensuring that new residents, students, and employers all benefit from a connected, skills-rich environment.

Its adaptable business model strengthens long-term sustainability for colleges, supports local housing need and demonstrates how integrated approaches can shape future learning, future communities, and future opportunity for generations to come.

Chris Levett, Director at DLA Architecture, said:
“Oaklands represents an inclusive and forward-thinking education project we are passionate about, and a powerful reminder of the vital role Further Education plays in the UK. For too long, FE has been placed on the back burner by successive governments and treated as a second-tier alternative to university. This masterplan shows what becomes possible when FE is properly valued: a campus designed for real-time learning across every discipline, where the building functions as a ‘real work environment’ and a teaching tool in its own right.

From exposed construction methodologies and visible structural systems, to students learning how to build film sets, care for the next generation of nature within the Animal Management Centre, and develop confidence and independence in specialist SEND environments, the entire estate becomes a live, day-to-day learning environment.

What makes Oaklands truly transformative is the business model behind it. By enabling much-needed local housing to fund state-of-the-art facilities, the project proves that education, housing, industry, ecology, and inclusion can work hand in hand, offering a replicable national model for future communities and future opportunity.”

Oliver Watson, Associate at DLA Architecture, added:
“One of the greatest complexities of Oaklands has been creating a cohesive masterplan across a 200-acre site where every building has an entirely different function,  from animal management and SEND to construction, creative industries, and elite sport. These facilities would normally exist as standalone projects, yet here they must work together holistically, both spatially and operationally. The landscape plays a critical role in stitching them together, ensuring that the first building remains as integrated and viable as the last across a multi-year delivery programme.

A key part of this strategy has been designing buildings that deliver exceptional educational environments while also enhancing community life and generating new revenue opportunities for the College. Spaces such as the Creative Gateway, Mansion House, and specialist sports and performance facilities act as both academic assets and civic venues, supporting events, exhibitions, training, clubs, and commercial hire.”

TEAM

Client: Oaklands College

Main Contractor: RG Carters

Post-Contract Design: RG Carters

Project Manager and Cost Consultant: Fusion PM