Drumgeith Community Campus
Drumgeith Community Campus
Client: Dundee City Council
Status: Completed 2025
Value: £100m
Type: New-build Secondary School & Community Campus
Location: Drumgeith Park, Dundee
Holmes Miller were commissioned by Dundee City Council for the delivery of a new flagship High School and Community Campus on Drumgeith Road, Dundee.
Built to replace two aging local school buildings - Cragie High School and Braeview Academy, the project aimed to merge these facilities into a new state-of-the-art school with a strong community focus. The merged schools have now been combined as ‘Greenfield Academy’ within the Drumgeith Community Campus building. The new school can accommodate up to 1900 pupils which includes for a substantial margin of growth in the future.
The community goal was not abstract, it was a genuine drive for this substantial investment to benefit the whole community, not only pupils. This was clear from an ambitious brief which championed sports, art, culture and further education links.
The Community Campus offers varied and flexible resources including - a large Community Library, Café, Fitness Gym, Dance Studio, Sports and Leisure Halls & Pitches, Computing & Adult Learning spaces, Community Theatre and Conference functions. Each of these facilities has been designed for shared ownership between school and community, with most of them able to be used flexibly and concurrently even during the school day.
The community ethos was also underpinned by a strong focus on inclusion. A sizable ASN wing is an integral part of the development, promoting social integration. The educational principle was for a very wide spectrum of pupils to be supported by this generous campus. To embrace this design approach, we focused on modular small group learning spaces and used biophilic design principles to create an environment for wellbeing, where daylight, muted colour and natural motifs promote a calming setting.
Building Performance: Passivhaus Classic
PV Array – 300KW (across 600+ modules)
Air Tightness – 0.42 ACH @ 50pa
Primary Energy Renewable value (PER) – 72.2 kWh/m2a
The interior design for Drumgeith Community Campus / Greenfield Academy was a direct response to the environment in which it sits. A green, arboreal site situated on a slope high up on the Eastern side of Dundee overlooking much of the City. There are views down towards the Tay and the site is ringed in mature trees which we strove to retain wherever possible.
Greenfield is an apt name for the new school, and the surrounding landscape influenced the biophilic themes of the river, hills and trees of Dundee. Varied tones of green promote calm, blended with natural timber finishes offering warmth and to connect the building occupants with their surroundings. Many of the key spaces connect back out to the environment with outdoor learning opportunities and outstanding sports facilities surrounding the building on all sides.
Sustainability was a key driver of this project which has been delivered as one of the largest Passivhaus Classic buildings in the country. It is a benchmark in energy efficiency with a PER rating of 72kWh/m2a, particularly effective for a high school with a large user energy demand. It is also has extremely efficient airtightness at ACH – 0.42. Consequently, this highly insulated and airtight building will provide exceptional user comfort while also substantially reducing energy running costs.
Sustainable technologies have been deployed to keep energy demands low, with Classroom MVHR units as standard, air source heat pumps and a large 300KW Solar PV array as part of the building energy mix.
We have also taken particular steps to protect the building against climate change. The site location was selected and an artificial plateau built, to elevate the facility above future storms and possible flooding events. This approach proved prudent as our facility survived a 1:200 year extreme storm and flood during the construction phase with no impact on the new-build.
These measures have all contributed to the delivery of a future-proofed and extremely resilient low-carbon facility.
Drumgeith Community Campus is a space where architecture, innovation and sustainability all come together to serve the community with generous, calming and flexible facilities.
