New Church Hall, Worcester
RICS Awards 2007 (West Midlands) "Community Benefit" Winner
& Worcester City Council Design Awards 2006 Winner
St George's RC Church is a Grade II listed Georgian church in the second most important city in the Diocese.
The site for the new hall was identified as the existing car park and derelict 19th century schoolhouse and Church Hall adjacent the Church.
Ridge as advisor to the Diocese, was requested to work with the Parish to develop solutions to their requirements and protect both the ethos and financial interests of the Diocese. The first exercise was to ascertain the options, and two were identified: a simple, functional, inexpensive hall facility at the rear of the site, or a more significant architectural statement adjacent to the Church.
Meetings were held with planners and other advisors and it was generally agreed that in order to obtain the necessary permissions to demolish buildings there would need to be a replacement building of architectural merit. It was also felt that this would be more in keeping with status of the church in the Diocese. Ridge, in close consultation with both the Parish and the Diocese, lead the process of selecting the Architect, then carefully managed the development of the scheme through the planning process.
The quality of the scheme produced a cost significantly in excess of the Client's initial funding and extensive value engineering was undertaken which attempted to retain the overall quality of materials, but at the same time ensuring best value. Ridge was also instrumental in securing some grant funding via the Landfill Tax.