Oasis Restore Secure School, Kent

An ambitious £26 million project to design and build the UK’s first secure school, Oasis Restore aims to educate and rehabilitate young offenders. Driven by the Government’s Prisons Strategy White Paper, it is part of the strategy for reducing reoffending rates and preventing further crime.

Project background

Swiftline Building Services Group engaged MultiCAD, Galliford Try and other sub-contractors on this first-of-its-kind project. The new secure school is built on the former Medway Secure Training Centre site and will house a maximum of 49 children, with ensuite bathrooms for each room, in 3 residential blocks. The site also has two education blocks and a central administration and services block.

The design of the school is based on international, peer reviewed research on how to best support young offenders. The construction design includes state-of-the-art barless windows as well as wristband-operated fobs for the doors. With all the old prison-style features stripped out, it has the look and feel of a residential school rather than a youth custody facility. This doesn’t compromise on security, however, as the school is still contained within prison walls.

MultiCAD was selected to provide full MEP co-ordination, BIM designs and COBie asset inputting. Having demonstrated our expertise across many past public sector and education projects (including HMP Coldingley, HMP Campsfield, HMP Swaleside, Meadow High School, Austen Academy), our design studio was delighted to support this project.

Deliverables required

The following were provided by MultiCAD:

• Full MEP services for coordination
• Coordinated CAD drawings
• BIM
• COBie asset digital inputs and schedules

To support seamless information management throughout the life of the project, the following software packages were used: Autodesk Revit (as the industry standard design package), Navisworks and 4Projects.

Main challenges

The original building structure was being retained, therefore the biggest challenges were co-ordinating the mechanical, engineering and plumbing (MEP) services to integrate both new and existing services.

Newer, state of the art services usually involve greater complexity than the existing structures. To ensure best value for money, BIM was used for early clash detection. This identifies potential problems during the design phase and minimises costly rework once construction is underway.

Solutions provided

Our expert team worked closely with other sub-contractors to provide BIM support to create a single source of construction information, easily accessible to all stakeholders. Meticulous planning for the full MEP services allowed this element of the build to proceed as planned.

The result is a completed build of the UK’s first ever secure school, with the MEP drawings and BIM designs delivered on time and within agreed budgets. It opened its doors to its first cohort of students in the summer of 2024.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Richard Huntley and the team at MultiCAD & BIM Solutions for over 5 years now, and I can confidently say they are the best in the industry when it comes to CAD and BIM work.

The speed, quality, and accuracy of the work they return is consistently outstanding, and they always have a deep understanding of the brief—often going beyond expectations. Richard is not only highly knowledgeable, but also one of the most approachable and reliable professionals I’ve worked with. He’s always available when needed and a real pleasure to deal with.

If you’re looking for a solid, dependable partner in the CAD/BIM space, I couldn’t recommend MultiCAD more highly. They’ve been an invaluable part of what we do at Swiftline.

Jon Jones – Project Director

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