Seashell celebrates success at Education Estates Awards

Local charity, Seashell, has announced its new Moulding Foundation Building on its campus on the Stockport-Cheshire border has earned two high commendations at the Education Estates awards.

The Moulding Foundation Building is the new home to Royal School Manchester and also offers shared spaces to Royal College Manchester and community users. Sensitively designed by architects, Faulknerbrowns, the building was highly commended in both the ‘School’ and ‘Inclusive Design’ Project of the Year categories at the awards.

The Education Estates Awards recognise the best in design and construction of new education facilities across the country, including schools, colleges, and universities. 

Seashell, also picked up the award for ‘Client of the Year’, recognising the impact of the organisation’s unique specialist care and education for some of the country’s most profoundly disabled children and young adults.

Chris Pugh, Senior Associate and Architect at Faulknerbrowns said:

“To be shortlisted in three categories and to come away with one first place and two second place awards is a great result for the whole project team.

“For the Client of the Year award, the judges praised how the extensive stakeholder engagement showed through, so credit must go to the whole stakeholder team.

“For us though, one of the best things about the evening was meeting more of the Seashell staff and hearing first-hand about ways the new building is helping students and staff tackle some of their many challenges and increase their opportunities. This kind of feedback is really important to us.”

Seashell parent, Jonathan Battye said of the Moulding Foundation Building:

“Parents were consulted in the planning process for the school, which was excellent. It just shows the thought that has gone into it. The Moulding Foundation Building provides an uplifting and inviting environment. There is just so much space. The wide corridors allow students to transition independently and safely from room to room.”

The Moulding Foundation Building is the second major development to complete as part of Seashell’s Transformation Project. It follows the opening, in 2015, of Sir Norman Stoller Way, a close of 17 news homes for the children and young adults who live at Seashell. The next phase is to fundraise for and build a new college to give its students the same access to gold standard facilities.