ARFQ - Bootle Town Hall Architectural Commission

This Brief is to appoint a multi-disciplinary team led by a conservation accredited architect to facilitate the repair, refurbishment and some re-modelling of Bootle Town Hall and the adjoining former library and museum to develop a new civic and cultural facility for Bootle.

This team must include an architect with a recognised conservation accreditation (for example RIBA Specialist Conservation Architect or AABC and ideally membership of the IHBC) along with a suitably qualified building surveyor, structural engineer, building services engineer, QS and possibly an urban designer / masterplanner, all with experience of similar projects incorporating listed historic buildings.

This project will ensure the Town Hall remains the civic focus of Bootle and also deliver a new cultural offer that will be sustainable and manageable over the long term. This will be achieved by refurbishing the fabric of two historic buildings to provide high quality civic facilities, intensify public use, provide for income-generation and bring back into use the former library and museum building as a new cultural / heritage centre. It will allow the Town Hall to function as a single entity by overcoming poor connectivity and circulation.

At this stage, we wish to develop the project to RIBA Stage 2 in line with published best practice for historic building conservation together with the Heritage Lottery Fund's requirements for a Stage 1 Heritage Grants application. Consequently, only conservation-accredited architectural practices are being invited to bid. The project will conform to exemplary practice in building conservation including ICOMOS core conservation principles and guidance set out in 'Informed Conservation' published by Historic England as well as the BS 7913 and EN 16096 standards, but balance this to deliver a pragmatic overall solution that is sustainable and manageable in the long run and, crucially, capable of being put forward for Heritage Lottery Funding in the future