SCHOOLS 097
residencies and studio spaces. In 2023, there were over 1,000 applicants, whittled down to 50 for the final show. And in the first four months there had been 65,000 visitors, with 10,000 of them under 18 (and the majority under 35).
While I marveled at the work and the platform these youngsters had been given, it provoked depressing comparisons with the scene back home in the UK, where the provision for arts education has never been
Since 2010, enrolment in arts GCSEs has fallen by 40% and the number of teachers by 23%, according to a Guardian article from January 2023
worse – at least not in the past half century. A January 2023 Guardian article spelled out the gloomy figures: since 2010, enrolment in arts GCSEs has fallen by 40% and the number of teachers by 23%. Tis dovetails with strategic demotion of arts and humanities subjects, since the Ebacc qualification was introduced by former education secretary Michael Gove in 2010. It excludes all arts subjects, and the scores it generates also form the yardstick by which schools are judged in the performance
This image The building’s generous-sized entrance foyer
Right The state
secondary school is designed to cultivate the next generation of orchestral performers
CASE STUDY CBSO SHIRELAND
In September 2023 the doors opened onto the UK’s first school to be established in collaboration with a world-class orchestra. In a radical new approach to music education aimed at cultivating the next generation of orchestral musicians, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) joined forces with Birmingham’s Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust to create the Shireland CBSO Academy.
From its initial Year 7 intake, the academy will eventually accommodate 750 secondary students with an additional 120-strong sixth form. And music will be at the centre of the school – in its curriculum as well as the architecture, given the three-storey concert space that has been shoehorned into what was previously a five-storey corporate atrium of a 1980s BT ofice block. ADP Architecture has had the privilege of masterminding this unlikely retrofit, to the usual Department of Education budgets and space restrictions. But it has – quite
rightly – prioritised the concert hall, working together with acoustic consultants Hoare Lee. As project architect William Allen says: ‘The usual assembly hall approach would be a box, but you need more resonance for music, and that means more angles to improve the acoustics.’ This one makes the most of its three-storey height along with an irregular shape – the hall expands sideways at ground and first floor levels – angled glass balconies along the second floor gallery, and grooved timber panels that line strategic walls. Softened by the upholstered, fixed seating that rakes up the rear wall, its resonance is designed to suit a wide range of music, which the principal David Green hopes will reflect the diversity of its catchment area, in Sandwell. Turning an existing ofice
block into a school is highly unusual, though the architects have made it work in the school’s favour where possible. The original atrium’s faceted glass roof now adorns a spacious, double-height library that sits on top of the slab that has been placed at third-storey level, above the auditorium. Classrooms and practice
rooms surround the hall on every level, enjoying ample daylight from the extensive exterior glazing (though brise soleil have been placed on the southerly side). Wider than usual corridors around the concert hall facilitate social interactions and encounters as pupils move between floors, and its faceted shape and bold, red and black door architraves reinforce both wayfinding and its symbolic value to the school. Equally important is the
building’s welcome to the wider community, who will be invited to a full programme of concerts throughout the year. So a generous entrance foyer leads directly to a box ofice as well as the concert hall, while the school’s ground floor dining facilities can be opened up for events and receptions.
Client CBSO and Shireland Collegiate Academy
Architects ADP Architecture Acoustic consultant Hoare Lea Completed September 2023
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