Greenhead Alumni’s return to provide an eco-friendly building

A prominent change to college life is the construction work that fills the old car-parking lot and entrance to the main building. However, in 2025, this construction site will have become a new, state-of-the art building containing labs, facilities for the subjects of Biology, Chemistry, Psychology, and Government and Politics, and study and social areas. While this is an exciting opportunity for our college, in the present, it is obscured by walls marking the perimeter. To grasp a greater understanding of this new-build, we interviewed Mark Dean, a Senior Design Manager at Galliford Try, and also a former Greenhead student, returning to his old college to improve education for future students.    

After leaving Greenhead in 1985, Mark started his journey to becoming a Senior Design Manager at Galliford Try, and what he didn’t know at the age of eighteen was that he would eventually end up back in the place that launched him into his career. This new build is Mark’s first big scheme in the local area and he believes in this project to further improve the needs of education in Huddersfield.  Although in his words it is “strange” to return, he is set to accomplish an eco-friendly building which will impact students in Greenhead, along with the local area, positively in the many years to come. 

As soon as he finished college Mark was plummeted into the world of work at an architectural practice and also continued to study for five years part-time whilst working. Through his choice of the technological path of Architecture, he got a job at Kirklees Council as a Junior in the Architect department and was there for twelve years until he left to work in a private practice in Selby Bridge in 1999, where he worked for a further two years. Mark continued to expand his career and worked in another architect practice in Bradford for eleven years. Then he made the decision to use the knowledge he had built over his career, and establish his own company in 2011, where he worked for six years before becoming a Senior Design Manager at Interserve in 2016. This all led him to Galliford Try, which he joined in August 2021, and to our College where he has provided his own passion for architecture to the new build, and helped to plan for the construction of an environmental-friendly facility.  

But what features will appear in the finished product that will help the environment in our local area? Mark offered us insight into the plans and measures put in place that will have a positive impact on our environment. Among these measures is 74000 kw of power generated by solar power, and in addition, the earth will be used to warm and cool the building, so there will be no gas boilers releasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Because the construction site has led to a large part of greenery being destroyed, four times as many trees and fauna will be replanted and there will be a green roof, ensuring the biodiversity criteria has been accomplished. The sustainable energy sources and natural ventilation will not only impact the college’s carbon footprint, but provide positive environmental impacts for Huddersfield, setting a high standard for the rest of the local area, and even the country. 

Mark and the rest of team at Galliford Try, and those at the construction company MACE, have demonstrated that our college, and schools and colleges around the country can have sustainable, carbon-reducing buildings that will battle global warming, reduce our carbon-footprint and protect our environment. This ambitious decision will inspire future generations of students who want to go into a careers such as construction and building design. Mark offered us advise to give to those who are thinking of going into architecture, which he refers to as the “rewarding profession”. Architecture and similar careers, lend a chance to give back to the community, you can design something that will provide opportunities and positively impact the public. However, becoming an architect takes seven years of training, with hard work and effort to get where you aspire to be. Although, if you are passionate about building for people and the outside space, careers such as architecture provide opportunities to positively transform communities and the world alike.