Vert-X provided the structural design for new classrooms built above an existing classroom block at Lindisfarne College in Hastings, completed in July 2025 with architect BSM Group and builder Gemco Construction. The classrooms below had just been renovated, so the brief was to add a storey on top without any structural work in those rooms - even though the existing structure wasn't adequate for the added seismic demand, and the addition had to match the floor-to-floor height of the adjacent building. We designed a scheme that carried the seismic loads entirely outside the existing building, using exterior steel portal frames so nothing passed through the renovated rooms, with a CLT (cross-laminated timber) first floor light enough to limit the bracing demand and quick to form as a working platform over the space below.