Dining Canopy installed for Lincoln College’s Café Area

What was the project brief?

Lincoln College approached A&S Landscape with a specific challenge – they needed a customised solution to address the growing congestion in their café area. The college was looking for an innovative way to expand their dining space and alleviate overcrowding. They envisioned an outdoor shelter that would not only increase capacity but also offer students a pleasant al fresco dining experience, but with the area frequently experiencing medium levels of wind, the school wanted a canopy with added sides to allow pupils to enjoy their meals outside in a comfortable and inviting environment. The goal was to create a versatile space that seamlessly integrated with the existing facilities while enhancing the overall dining experience for students.

What was our canopy solution?

We provided a bespoke variation of our Motiva Linear™ canopy, with an overall size of 12445mm X 7200mm, this design benefits from a mono-pitch asymmetric roof, which provides both aesthetic and functional benefits by efficiently ridding itself of debris, rainwater, and snow. Our wind-safe design features glass panels to provide pupils with enhanced shelter so that they can comfortably enjoy their drinks, snacks, and lunch throughout the year. The canopy sports a simplistic but modern colour combination, taking advantage of our Slate Grey Duracoat™ on all steelwork – that provides added longevity – paired with an Opal polycarbonate roof that evenly disperses light whilst protecting from UV rays.

About the client

Lincoln College is one of the largest General Further Education Colleges in the country, comprising Lincoln College, Newark College, and ASI – as well as home to Lincoln College University Centre. Lincoln College was first developed from the Lincoln School of Science and Art, which opened 27th Sept 1886, and has evolved into a College Group, spanning two counties (Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire in the UK) and three continents, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and China. Lincoln College have a key focus on boosting the employability and expected salaries of their students, by training critical and transferable skills.

The Benefits of Eating Outdoors

There is a lot of research which highlights the benefits of spending time outdoors; reducing heart rate, and blood pressure, lowering stress hormones, and easing muscle tension. It can even boost your mood. Improvements in attention, memory, and concentration have also been shown. With the longest break in the school day being the lunch break, a great solution is alfresco dining. More and more schools are enhancing their outdoor areas, creating outdoor dining spaces, with canopies, shade sails, umbrellas, and even enclosed outdoor dining rooms. With growing pupil numbers, this is a solution to the increased pressure that existing dining rooms come under as schools grow.