Ayre Chamberlain Gaunt’s new town-centre campus for South Staffordshire College replaces a redundant department store with a civic-minded building that reconnects further education to the Tamworth historic centre.

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Jim Stephenson

Ayre Chamberlain Gaunt has completed a new central campus for South Staffordshire College on a prominent site in Tamworth town centre. Set opposite the market square and the Grade I listed Church of St Editha, the building replaces a long-vacant department store with a purpose-built home for further education, drawing students and daily activity back into the centre of town.

Rather than treating the project as a single entity, the Basingstoke practice approached it as an exercise in repairing urban grain. A close study of Tamworth’s historic street patterns informed the massing and articulation of the façades, reintroducing a sense of rhythm, scale and permeability that had been lost during post-war redevelopment.

The campus as a result presents a more open and civic face to St Editha’s Square. Along this elevation, a series of carefully placed openings reveal the vocational spaces within, lending animation to the public realm and making learning visible from the street. To the north, the façade adopts a more regular cadence, echoing the narrow plots that once characterised the area, while a varied roofscape establishes a measured relationship with the surrounding townscape.

Inside, the building is organised around a generous central space that functions as the social and spatial hub of the campus. Illuminated from above by two four-storey lightwells, this internal forum brings daylight deep into the plan and allows views across departments, supporting intuitive navigation through the building. Informal study areas, meeting points and event space are also gathered here, reinforcing the sense of a shared academic community.

Public-facing facilities, including a café and hairdressing salon, are located at ground level and directly address the square. These spaces blur aim to link college and town, encouraging passers-by to enter and ensuring that the building remains active beyond teaching hours. Above, meanwhile, specialist and general teaching spaces have been arranged to balance openness with acoustic and functional separation.

By consolidating several dispersed facilities into a single town-centre campus, the project hopes to embed the college within Tamworth’s everyday life, with students arriving via the market square, lessons unfolding behind civic façades, and learning becoming a part of the town’s visible, daily rhythm.

“As we continue to consider how best to regenerate the centres of towns across the UK, South Staffordshire College shows the role that education can play in driving footfall and bringing life to the heart of a place,” said Dominic Gaunt, director at Ayre Chamberlain Gaunt.

“The brief presented significant challenges – a deep-plan site, a sensitive heritage context, and the need to incorporate public access – but the real success here lies in the funding and negotiations. With multiple funding streams including the DfE, local authority and the Future High Streets Fund, it’s testament to Peter and his team’s determination that the project happened at all.”

“The completed building is loved by staff and students and provides a rich mixture of teaching and learning spaces in the heart of the town,” added Peter Marsh, client director said. “This project demonstrates how a bold vision, determination to secure funding and inspiring architecture really can shape the future for learners and the wider community.”

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