We’re very pleased to announce that we’ve been awarded just over £500K to upgrade our HQ, The Edge by Arts Council England. This is huge news for us and we’re very happy that the building will be more accessible and more sustainable as a result of the work we will do. We’re working with architects Coda Workshop to use Passivhaus principles to hugely reduce our carbon footprint. We’ll be installing heat pumps and mechanical ventilation heat recovery systems. We’ll be insulating the building to retain as much heat as we can – the ‘artists impression’, above shows what it might look like – the colours are referencing the buildings former use as a boiled sweet factory – but you or we might come up with more ideas for the finished design.

We’ll also increasing access by creating more accessible stairs and a lift. We’ll be increasing the footprint of the building by creating an extension on the first floor to our boundary and installing a parapet on the roof to create a safe, outdoor space (accessible by lift). Lots of other nips, tucks and tweaks will give us a much more comfortable, safe, sustainable and accessible space long into the future.

This will mean, however, that for much of 2023 we’ll have to close the building while the work is carried out. We’ll be relocating Art Club to a nearby community space and our other work will be concentrated offsite for the duration of the build. It’s going to be a lot of hard work (and probably heartache), but we’ll be leaving the people of Birmingham with a great arts and community space for the long term. Which is nice.

If you’ve got any questions feel free to get in touch, exciting times are ahead.