Easthouses Primary School, Dalkeith

Client: Midlothian Council, Hub South East

Contractor: Morrison Construction Scotland – Central

Project value: £22m

Project team: Russell Macdonald, Scott Tunnah

Awards:

Winner of Learning Places Scotland Awards 2025, Inspiring Learning Spaces
Shortlisted for Learning Places Scotland Awards 2025, Project of the Year

The new build state-of-the-art Easthouses Primary School provides a new 459 pupil primary school, 80 place nursery and ASN provision.

The project is modelled over one and two storeys around a semi-enclosed courtyard that maximises the outstanding views from the building towards the Pentland Hills to create an exciting new learning environment for the children of Easthouses. The plan form has been developed to ensure the retention of all existing mature trees on the site whilst new trees enhance the biophilic quality of the site.

Sustainability is embedded within the heart of the project; although not LEIP funded, the project achieves an energy usage in line with LEIP Band A and the environmental approach seeks to maximise solar gain whilst providing shaded and covered areas that are integral to the building, maximising outdoor learning space at each level of the building. The construction process utilised arc-welded steel to reduce embodied carbon.

A generous social stair is located within the heart of the building and is planned as a highly flexible, adaptable space which should enable it to be used as a whole school teaching resource space as well as an interesting space to socialise. This stair faces the multipurpose hall, allowing it to act as both seating to an informal stage for assemblies, a spectator area for sports or for the two spaces to function as separate environments.

RMP provided the outline and detailed advice as part of the design team relative to acoustic design specifications including wall and floor constructions, acoustic ratings of doors and glazed partitions, advice on the selection and placement of acoustic absorbers, detailed calculation of internal ambient noise levels from plant noise and break-in of external noise.

As room acoustics is of utmost importance for specialised learning spaces RMP consultants used ODEON reverberation time modelling for all teaching spaces in the school including classrooms, open plan teaching spaces, assembly spaces, and a hydrotherapy area. Ray tracing modelling was used to ensure compliance with the rigorous BB93 reverberation time criteria for SEN teaching areas, aiming to create optimal learning environments with exceptional acoustics.

During the construction phase, RMP provided ongoing design support to the contractor and design team. We undertook several site inspections of key acoustic details throughout the building.

Upon completion of the school building stage, RMP carried out acoustic compliance measurements in various teaching and CDC spaces to demonstrate compliance against the BB93 and SHTM 08-01 design criteria.