BILSTON ART COLLEGE:
The Former Bilston Art College, Mount Pleasant, Bilston. A planning application is imminent with respect to the redevelopment of the former Bilston Art College site at Mount Pleasant, Wolverhampton. The anticipated £10.5M proposals will involve the refurbishment and alteration of the existing former college building to form 18no duplex type apartments, with associated car parking, amenity space and concierge facilities. In addition, the project will incorporate an extra 44no new build apartment units ranging in size from 56sqm to 66sqm also with integral underground secure car and cycle parking, central courtyard amenity space, and urban landscaped features. The scheme proposals have been developed in close consultation with Wolverhampton CC and have been designed with sustainability and urban regeneration issues in mind. The site lies at the junction of Mount Pleasant with Beldray Road and Prospect Road, and occupies land which forms part of an area designated by the local authority as suitable for urban regeneration. The new build apartments benefit from having a dual aspect outlook which assists with cross ventilation and simultaneously provides both a public and a private aspect to the dwellings. Environmental concerns with the new development have been addressed in terms of space heating and ventilation with measures to be incorporated including passive stack ventilation, reducing the electrical load on individual apartments, solar hot water heating reducing the demand for reliance upon fossil fuels to heat water and a district biomass heating system which can produce heat from burning waste processed timber material. Underfloor heating will realise the maximum space from the units without the encumberance of wall mounted radiators, while intelligent wall lining systems will assist in maintaining internal room temperatures and passive solar heat gain will be utilised to help warm communal circulation spaces.
