CeAL News

CeAL Building to Receive Civic Award

The Centre for Active Learning Building has won a prestigious Cheltenham Civic Award in the ‘New Building or Structure’ category. The building, which was officially opened in October, has recently been visited by a team of adjudicators who look at requirements including building proportion, design, materials, workmanship and overall composition. The ‘New Building or Structure’ category states that ‘the building should contribute to the quality and appearance of the townscape and take account of the physical context in which it is located.’

The Awards Ceremony, which takes place on Wednesday 28th March at the Town Hall, will be hosted by Marcus Binney CBE, the founder and President of Save Britain’s Heritage. Mr Binney will tour the CeAL Building accompanied by the Council’s Mayor Jacky Fletcher prior to the ceremony.

The building’s architects, Fielden Clegg Bradley, had previously won a Civic Trust Award for Sustainability for their work at Oxstalls Campus in 2003. Principal Architect and Senior Partner Peter Clegg recollected the early stages of development at FCH: “There was a strong aspirational brief from the University, that this was going to be the last major building project for the campus and all the shots were going to be pulled out on the sustainability front. We were very constrained by what we could build, the profile we could build, the volume we could build on the site.  So we had this challenge of getting the maximum amount of floor space into what was a volume determined by planning constraints.”

CeAL Co-director, Carolyn Roberts, commented at the opening in October: “When the CeAL building was planned we wanted to provide new spaces to reflect 21st century styles of student learning - social, collegiate, collaborative, welcoming, ICT-rich, purposeful and stylish - but in the heritage setting of Francis Close Hall, and without compromising our environmental credentials. Working with Feilden Clegg Bradley and many others to realise the project was also fascinating, challenging, and invigorating.”

Further information about the CeAL building from conception through to completion can be found here

02 March 2007

For more information on the Centre for Active Learning contact:
Barbara Rainbow, CeAL Administrator, Tel: +44 (0)1242 714683, E-mail: brainbow@glos.ac.uk
Sonia Chilton, CeAL Administrative Assistant, Tel: +44 (0)1242 714615, E-mail: slchilton@glos.ac.uk