Location: Cornwall, UK
Client: Truro School
Project Team: Ward Williams Associates, MBA Consulting, Method Consulting, InAcoustics, Blew Barton, McGregor Coxall, Spaldings Ecologist, Influence Planning, Anstey Horne, HK Safety Services, Assent Building Control
Timescale: Planned completion in 2026
Size: Music Centre 1,165 m2, Performance Centre 675 m2
Truro School’s Music Project is a multi-million-pound music centre and refurbished multi-use hall. The new facilities will foster musical participation, excellence and inclusion within the school and the wider community.
Scheduled for completion at the start of 2026, the project will offer state-of-the-art facilities for pupils, the Truro community and beyond. The project also paves the way for improved student well-being.
The project will be realised through a combination of new-build elements and retrofitting of an existing building. The new-build Music Centre will provide rehearsal rooms, classrooms and practice rooms with excellent acoustic separation and internal conditions. It will also create a new home for the Cornwall Music Service Trust who are working with the school on their outreach work.
The existing sports hall will be retained and refurbished to deliver a new Performance Centre with a 600 person capacity. Linking these two elements together will be a double height glazed atrium space that will also act as a ‘community facing’ front door. All of this will be wrapped in an external façade that evokes both the 21st Century nature of this project and the historic buildings at Truro School.
In line with the school’s ethos, we have worked with our consultant team to ensure a supremely sustainable addition to the campus.
The new-build element will be super-insulated and triple glazed with electric based heating and 187 m2 of photovoltaic panels on the roof making it Net Zero Carbon in operational terms. The structural grid has been tailored to provide the maximum future flexibility and adaptability for the building. By retaining and re-using the existing hall we are dramatically minimising the embodied carbon in construction. Through a reduction of the vehicular access and parking directly by the building we are also increasing the amount of landscaped area which is good for student and staff well-being as well as biodiversity.
I am proud to be heading a School that embraces the transformative power of music education, investing with prudence and ambition in the cultural enrichment of the School and Cornwall’s wider community.
Andy Johnson, Head of Truro School
Cornwall Music Service Trust is a charity providing music teaching, support, and therapy for close to 10,000 children across over 240 schools or settings in Cornwall and we see this facility as incredibly important for music education in Cornwall. We are now in our 10th year of operation and are very excited about the tangible opportunities the Music Project will present, providing an efficient and effective environment to facilitate our work as a charity.
Gareth Churcher, Head of Service at Cornwall Music Service Trust
We at Tate+Co are delighted that this building is set to have a real impact on the community of Cornwall through the transformational power of musical education.