Pick Everard award-winning school building project

Pick Everard has scooped an award at the 18th RICS East Midlands Awards - in recognition of its design of a GBP17.9 million school building project.

Voluntary-aided Madani High School, in Evington Valley Road, Leicester, came top in the Community Benefit category of the regional finals at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors' Awards 2008.

The project took five years to implement and the design merges key elements of traditional Islamic architecture and religious principles with the latest in modern, ecologically-conscious building technology.

The central landscaped courtyard features a rill, a traditional Islamic water feature, which runs through a formed, tree-lined route leading to the domed Prayer Hall at the focal point of the building.

Backed by a GBP16.11 million grant - the largest ever awarded to a UK Muslim faith school by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) - a further GBP1.79 million was raised by the local Muslim community for this new base of the Leicester Islamic Academy.

The spacious new premises will cater for 300 girls and 300 boys of secondary school age, many of whom live in the immediate neighbourhood, which has the third highest number of qualification-poor residents and unemployment rates in the city.

The building was completed in August 2007, built on the former site of a metal and rubber component manufacturer, which made it necessary to de-contaminate the area from oil pollution and the inevitable residue of 80 years' industrial use.

Designed on fundamental principles of sustainable development, the two-storey building incorporates natural ventilation and includes components and materials from sustainable resources.

Renewable energy is provided by a biomass boiler installation using locally produced woodchips.

As winner of the Regional Award, the project now goes forward for assessment for the RICS National Award, to be presented at the international grand finals in London, on October 17.

Kevin McCloud, presenter of Channel 4's Grand Designs series, will host the event.

The exemplary design will be up against other major projects from across the globe, but John Tiernan, partner at Pick Everard, is optimistic that Madani High School possesses the requisite qualities needed for the coveted Project of the Year prize.

He comments: "It was an honour to be recognised at the regional awards".

"To win the Community Benefit Award, the design must have demonstrated excellence in making a positive contribution to the local community".

"We really enjoyed working on the design of this building, developed to meet the very specialist cultural needs of our client".

"We feel that its strength lies in bringing essential community services to a particularly disadvantaged area of the city".

And given Pick Everard's recent past track record at awards ceremonies, the firm has every right to be optimistic about the final result.

Something of a design and engineering specialist in the education sector, Pick Everard is no stranger to award acceptance speeches.

* In 2006, the practice picked up the Leicestershire and Rutland Society of Architects Design Award for the first phase of a GBP15.24 million building at Stephenson College, in Coalville, Leicestershire.

The same project also earned the firm a special merit mention at the RIBA/Learning and Skills Council Further Education Awards and a commendation at the Ibstock EM Design Excellence Awards (both 2006).

* The same year, Pick Everard partner John Tiernan won the North Staffordshire Citizen of the Year Charity Award in Architectural Design for the Medical School and Primary Care Sciences Research Centre, at Keele University, in Staffordshire.

* In the last year, Pick Everard has won no fewer than THREE awards for its work at Oakham School: The George Phillips Award (2007); Leicestershire Joint Consultative Committee Merit Award for Craftsmanship (2007), and Leicestershire and Rutland Society of Architects Design Award (2008).

Back to top