Stow College

Constructionarium

Constructionarium is a hands-on construction experience for students following civil engineering and built environment courses. It allows the students to learn practically and to build bridges with industry - their future employers. It is designed to be part of a 21^st Century engineering education which links the world of academic theory with contractors and consultants from the construction industry.

The basic model consists of engineering students, a contractor and an engineering consultancy practice. They all work in partnership to deliver a learning experience that combines the academic perspective with those of the design professional and practical site delivery. Constructionarium turns theory into practice,  introducing scoping and specifying work, safety, logistics, costing, and teamwork and, of course, the elements. A pro-active partnership draws not only from its own continuous learning cycle but also contributes to the programme wide development.

Constructionarium has been running successfully since 2002.  The practical course runs for a working week, running from Sunday afternoon until Friday afternoon, on a full time residential basis and takes the teams through a complete project cycle. The students are guided by a professional team through real, but scaled down, construction projects typically working at a scale between 1:20 and 1:100.  These projects range from the Ravenspurn Oil Rig to the Torre de Collersola from Barcelona; from the London Gherkin to the Millau Viaduct from France. There are now 12 projects from which to choose, details of which can be found on the website www.constructionarium.co.uk

The enhancement to the students qualification by undertaking this project has been as follows:-

• The application of Health&Safety on a live construction site
• The responsibilities of bringing a construction project in on time and to cost
• The allocation of task responsibilities and general man management  relative

to the construction industry.

• The necessity of team working to successfully complete a project
• The employability skills gained by working on a live project

Stow College is the only Scottish Institution and the only FE College in Britain currently to be invited in to this partnership.