Royal Birmingham Conservatoire wins Project of the Year accolade

The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire project has been awarded the overall ‘West Midlands Project of the Year’ title at the regional RICS awards.

The annual awards, held at the Grand Station in Wolverhampton last night, attracted hundreds of property professionals and was hosted by BBC Midlands Today news presenter Mary Rhodes.

The conservatoire, the first digital one of the 21st Century – which covers approximately 10,500 sq m of lecture and teaching space – also scooped the Design through Innovation award for its innovative approach to a multi-purpose building and for once again highlighting the diversity of the region and bringing further investment to Birmingham.

The Project of the Year accolade is presented to the scheme which demonstrates overall outstanding best practice and an exemplary commitment to adding value to its local area.

RICS judges said the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire project was a stand-out winner for its complex structural, architectural and services solutions, making it a world class facility on a national and international stage .

Chair of the judging panel for the RICS Awards, West Midlands, Gurdip Chamba, director at Crossland Property Consultants, said: “The Royal Conservatoire Birmingham is a purpose built, teaching and performance facility and the first ‘digital’ conservatoire of the 21st Century.  Costing some £63m, it extends to some 10,500 sqm over 6 storeys to include 100 practice/ rehearsal rooms, concert hall, recital hall, recording studios, percussion suites, organ performance and jazz club.”

He adds: “A highly complicated building, it involved complex structural, architectural and services solutions including modern audio visual, highly specified acoustic requirements and ‘box within a box’ designed areas to isolate rooms from the main building structure. The result is a ‘world class’ facility with national and international appeal which will attract further investment to the city. This grand project had stiff competition from other entries but in many ways stood ‘head and shoulders’ above other entries and has also received the Royal seal of approval.”

The winners of all eight individual categories are as follows:
Building Conservation – Attingham Park – Visitor Centre, Biomass Plant, and Stables Café Renovation, Shrewsbury
Commercial – Kingswood Lakeside, First Choice Catering Spares, Cannock
Community Benefit – TouchBase Pears, Birmingham
Design through Innovation – Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, part of Birmingham City University
Infrastructure – Tool Box Talk Video Infrastructure
Regeneration – National College for High Speed Rail, Birmingham
Residential – Maple West, Stoke-on-Trent
Tourism & Leisure – World of Wedgwood, Stoke-on-Trent

Chamba said: “These winning projects are testament to the successful collaboration of the talented teams behind them. Together, their complimentary skills and exceptional vision has not only created some remarkable built schemes which the West Midlands can be immensely proud of, but they are also having a profoundly positive impact on their local communities.

All category winners will go on to compete against other regional winners at the national RICS Awards Grand Final on 2 November 2018 in London, for the chance to be crowned the overall UK winner in their respective category.