C4 to design £18m children’s centre

Warrington-based architect and project manager C4 Consulting has been appointed by national charity Caudwell Children on an £18m new therapy and research centre to be developed near Keele in Staffordshire.

In what will be the first of its kind in the UK, the Caudwell International Children’s Centre (CICC) has been designed to provide an ideal environment for disabled people, with a particular focus on the needs of children with autism and neurodevelopmental conditions.

New computer generated images (CGIs) released by the charity show the 60,000sq ft iconic building set in the North Staffordshire countryside with curved steel roofs around two internal courtyards, clad in timber and stone.

Developed from concepts drawn by charity chief executive Trudi Beswick, and with regular consultation with children and families affected by autism, the charity has appointed C4 Consulting to complete the iconic design.

Buckingham Group Contracting has been appointed as the main contractor, with Tier Consult and KGA Partnership leading the structural and mechanical electrical engineering respectively.

Working closely with architect James Pass and the design team from C4, the charity has scrutinised every element of the design and visited schools and therapy centres across the UK, America and Canada to ensure the architecture would be at the forefront of building designs for autism. The scheme is on target for completion in September 2017.

Damian Horridge, managing director of C4 Consulting , said: “All of the team at C4 are delighted to be working on such an important facility for disabled children.

“Caudwell Children have very clear aspirations for the building and provide invaluable insight into the day-to-day use of the building and the potential challenges the children who will visit the Centre may face. It is our job to realise these aspirations and I’m thrilled with the way the building looks at this point.”

Beswick, added: “It started with a sketch as I tried to work out how children with sensory and social challenges could move around the building with the least amount of stress. As I worked on it at home my daughter asked ‘why are you drawing a butterfly’, which coincidentally happens to also be the charity’s logo.”