Pre-Engineered Buildings
Steel school buildings, canteens and sports halls, including halls with no internal columns. Masas builds them for schools and education groups, often on campuses where lessons continue while the work goes on.
Drawings or a written scope is enough to price it.
Two figures describe this work. A 64-metre clear span shows a sports floor can be kept entirely free of columns. Two canteen buildings built around term dates show the other side of school work: the campus stays open, so the programme follows the school.
64 m
Clear span on a sports hall
Etqan Global Academy, no internal columns
2
Canteen buildings on a working campus
QIS, programmed around term dates
Schools, Sports Halls & Campus Buildings
Schools use steel for classroom blocks, canteens, covered areas and sports halls. Steel suits this work because the parts are made in a workshop and largely bolted together on site, so the noisy, heavy work of cutting and welding happens away from the campus.
A sports hall is the most demanding of these buildings. Courts are marked out to a governing body’s standard, including safety margins around the edges, and a column inside that area makes the hall unusable for full-size play. The roof therefore has to cross the whole floor in one span, which needs deeper, heavier steel.
Many school projects are built while the school is open. Students, staff and parents use the site every day, so cranes, deliveries and noisy work have to be planned around the school timetable and term dates. On an operating campus the programme is set by the school, not by the steel.
Multi-purpose sports halls without internal columns
Structural steel for new school buildings
Canteens and other campus buildings
Roofing and cladding in the same package
Plain terms
These words explain what a hall can be used for and how the work fits around a school.
The distance the roof structure crosses with no column underneath. In a sports hall it must cover the courts and their safety margins. It is not the same as the building’s overall width, which can include columns.
A school site that stays in use during construction. The works area is usually separated from students and staff, and deliveries, crane lifts and noisy activities are timed so they do not cross the school day.
The order in which steel is lifted into place. On a school site it is planned around term dates, school holidays and daily routines, so the heaviest lifts can happen when the fewest people are nearby.
A roof beam made of smaller steel members joined in triangles. It can cross a long distance using less steel than a solid beam of the same depth, which is why it is common over large halls.
Before you decide
Four decisions affect the design, the price and when work can happen on site. Most depend on how the school operates.
The largest court, its safety margins and the height needed above it set the clear span and clear height. Every extra metre of span adds steel to every roof frame, so design for the sports you will actually play rather than a round number.
Term dates, holidays and examinations decide when heavy lifts and noisy work can happen. Share the school calendar at the start, so the steel is fabricated in advance and ready for the windows when the campus is quietest.
Delivery trucks and cranes need a route that does not cross drop-off areas, playgrounds or walkways in use. The route and the crane position affect how the steel is erected, so they are agreed with the school before the method statement is written.
Sports halls often hang lighting, sound systems, basketball goals, nets or solar panels from the roof steel. Each adds load across a long span, so list everything that will be fixed overhead before the frames are designed.
The stages are the same as any steel package, but the school calendar sets the dates.
01
Masas confirms the scope in writing before quoting, alongside the constraints the school has set: term dates, working hours and the areas that must stay open.
02
Shop drawings, a method statement covering access and lifting on the campus, an inspection and test plan and a risk assessment go to the consultant for approval against QCS 2014.
03
Steel is cut, welded to AWS standards and protected in the Masas workshop in Al Wukair, and inspected against the approved plan, keeping cutting and welding away from students.
04
Erection is sequenced around the occupied campus and the main contractor’s programme. Snagging, as-built documentation and certificates close the package.
For a quotation
The building drawings and a site plan showing where the building sits among the existing buildings, entrances and play areas.
Which courts the hall must hold, the clear height needed, and whether it will also host assemblies or events.
Term dates, holidays, school hours, and any limits on deliveries, crane positions or noise while students are on site.
Whether you need design, supply, erection or all three, whether roofing and cladding are included, and anything the roof will carry.
Record
Contract values are not published. Scale is stated in area and clear span.
Design, fabrication and erection of a 64-metre clear-span hall. A span of this order removes every internal column from the playing area, which is what makes the hall usable for full-size courts.
Engineering, fabrication and erection of two canteen buildings. Work on an operating school campus is programmed around term dates rather than around the steel.
View projectEngineering, fabrication and erection of the structural steel for a school building, sequenced around an occupied campus. The school is Beverly Hills International School (BHIS).
View projectThe other parts of this service, each on its own page with its own evidence.
Send drawings or a scope and we will come back with a quotation.
