Green light for school's ambitious sport and art plan (From Ledbury Reporter)

Green light for school's ambitious sport and art plan

12:20pm Monday 3rd September 2012 in News

AN HISTORIC Worcester site will become home to a state-of-the-art sports and performing arts centre after it was given the green light by planners.

Work on constructing King’s School Worcester’s new SPACE building in Severn Street is set to start in February after changes to a planning application approved in October 2008 were rubber stamped this month.

The centre, which occupies the site of the former Salmon’s Leap pub, will provide sports and fitness facilities for both school and community use, as well as parking, teaching and top floor dance and drama studios with views towards the Malvern Hills, and a new sixth form centre.

Headmaster of King’s School, Tim Keyes, said: “The SPACE building will complete the evolution of the school from a boy’s boarding school to a fully co-educational day school and is the final piece in the jigsaw of development to ensure that every King’s pupil can find, explore and develop his or her own potential.”

The building will reflect the scale and proportion of the former Royal Worcester Porcelain works opposite the site, and bronze-coloured metalwork and artwork will be integrated into the façade in a nod to evidence of Bronze Age fortifications uncovered in Severn Street by archaeological digs.

A flight of external steps will create a new route from Severn Street into the school and frame a view of the cathedral.

The building will also be powered by renewable energy from wood-chip boilers and solar panels for heating, and free cooling provided via a ground source heat pump.

The project will be partially funded by the King’s Foundation Development Trust and donations by friends of the school.

It follows the recent completion of the Michael Baker Boathouse for the school’s rowing club, which hovers above the regenerated riverside promenade near the Diglis Hotel.

Matthew Goer, director of Associated Architects, which designed both buildings, said: “This planning application is the latest chapter in our long-standing relationship with King’s and shows the trust and close working relationships built up between the school, local authority and our practice.”