The Bahrain Bayan School, Bahrain

Project: Exterior facade and domes
Location: Bahrain Bayan School, Isa Town, Bahrain
Client: Al Bayan School
Architect: Al Ansari Engineering
Engineering Consultants: Al Ansari Engineering
Handover: 1982

The Bahrain Bayan School is the kingdom’s first bilingual national school. Established in 1982 on a dedicated educational campus in Isa Town, it now boasts world class facilities including a theatre, running track and robotics lab. Over 30 years ago, BFG was tasked with transforming the school’s ordinary concrete facade to reflect traditional Islamic architecture - and to top the building with a landmark dome. Over three decades later, the composite work remains in pristine condition.

To clad the exterior and build a new covered walkway for students – creating an external corridor around the building – BFG fabricated and installed a sequence of lightweight composite FRP sandwich panels in a Middle Eastern design, built using traditional hand tooling. Robust, fire retardant and impact resistant, the composite cladding was installed without disrupting the school schedule.

The self-supporting panels were fixed to concrete plinth with anchor bolts and connected to the building using single skin arched roof panels. No supporting steel was needed to complete the work. The panels were produced with a gelcoated finish which has required no refurbishment since installation, delivering maintenance-free performance for 34 years...
and counting.