Potteries Museum & Art Gallery (PMAG)- Arts Council England - Phase 1 Pre-Construction Service Agreement RIBA Stage 3 & 4

Description

Stoke-on-Trent City Council and their appointed Multi-Disciplinary Design Team are looking to procure the services of a Main Contractor via a Two-Stage Tender under a JCT Design & Build 2024 Contract. The appointed Contractor will enter a JCT PRE-CONTRACT SERVICES AGREEMENT (GENERAL CONTRACTOR) 2016 EDITION with Stoke-on-Trent City Council to assist with the development of the RIBA Stage 4 design and procurement process, within the parameters of the Arts Council England (ACE) Funding Criteria. A client decision has been made to appoint the contractor towards the end of RIBA stage 3 to conduct a RIBA stage 3 review and engage stakeholders before moving on to RIBA stage 4. The evaluation criteria will be split based on a 60% price and 40% quality split. This ensures that a Contractor is chosen with relevant experience of working in this sector and especially around an ongoing operation where members of the public and staff could be in close proximity to the works whilst also ensuring value for money. The preliminary costs and overheads and profit percentage will form part of the PCSA procurement process. Following RIBA stage 4, the contractor will seek sub-contractor quotations in order to produce a contract sum. The agreed overheads and profit percentage, and preliminary costs will be fixed. Stoke-on-Trent City Council reserve the right to request the contractor to obtain sub-contractor quotations from pre-selected sub-contractors. For all works packages, the contractor must endeavour to obtain three sub-contractor quotations. These will be interrogated by the consultant to ensure value for money is achieved. Lot 1: Stoke-on-Trent City Council and their appointed Multi- Disciplinary Design Team procured the services of a Main Contractor via a Two-Stage Tender under a JCT Design & Build 2024 Contract. The appointed Contractor will enter a Pre-Construction Services Agreement with Stoke-on-Trent City Council to assist with the development of the RIBA Stage 3 & 4, within the parameters of the Arts Council England (ACE) Funding Criteria The multi-disciplinary design team were appointed in December 2023, and since this time have undertaken significant internal and external stakeholder engagement to develop the RIBA Stage 2 Stage 3 Brief. The Brief has not only had to satisfy key stakeholders, but also the ACE Funding Criteria. The ACE Funding Criteria for ‘Agreed Use’: • An integrated research facility for the study of ceramics and local history • A publicly accessible accredited museum. • Rehousing of the City’s Archives, including a reading room (separate project already completed). • Storage and office areas, including staff welfare. • Artist in residence and workshop spaces with public viewing. • Learning and teaching spaces to support education, health, and wellbeing programmes. The design teams research and design development has been led by the specific ambitions set out in the successful funding bid application to Arts Council England for Cultural Development Funding: • The refurbishment of the main entrance to create a greater sense of arrival and welcome. • Repurposing and better use of existing floor space at ground, upper basement and lower basement levels. • Creation of a new reading room (separate project already completed). • Upgrading and relocation of the existing teaching and learning spaces. • Creation of additional storage areas and office space. • Improved staff welfare space. Further to these considerations, we have also identified a series of other important issues to be addressed through the project works: • Currently PMAG has limited external appeal and appears disconnected from Hanley Centre. • The internal public flows are confusing and not intuitively read. • The first floor is sparsely visited, despite the excellence of the collections. • A new visitor could visit the Museum without knowing a café exists. • As highlighted by the client team, the ‘moat’ around the building along Bethesda Street and Broad Street is highly problematic; separating the building from its surroundings, creating unpleasant narrow spaces which can foster anti-social behaviour and creating an unattractive edge to the public realm. • The latent internal drama is somewhat undersold – the central triple-height internal void should be an exciting ‘reveal’ but currently this is not manifesting The Works The remodelling of PMAG encompasses several elements, as set out below: • The main entrance is moved to the north-eastern corner of the building, with a chamfered building line sitting under the Museum’s existing cantilevered overhang. Providing greater connectivity to the Public Realm. • The existing triple height Sculpture Court will provide an open storage gallery space, addressing both the shortfall in current storage accommodation and provide greater public access to currently hidden parts of the Museum’s collections. Increasing the museums open storage offering. • The main café is brought front of house, served by a kitchen housed in an under-utilised circulation space adjacent to the former Sculpture court. New glazing along the eastern frontage allows for sections to fold away enabling an open flow to an extensive external terrace. Bringing the café to the front elevation will make it a vastly more appealing destination and will show the museum as an animated and popular place for passers-by.(First Floor Kitchen Stores and Offices to be value engineered). • The access to an appealing external terrace will also being a great benefit to café users, with views across to the heritage buildings on the other side of Bethesda Street. • The existing café area is retained to serve the education / conference suite which can be directly accessed from the secondary entrance between the original museum and the new Spitfire Gallery from the east. The existing café space would be a multi-function space, for instance to display the artwork of visiting school groups. • A new glazed Artist-in-Residence Space within the Entrance Foyer which will provide a degree of animation and connectivity with the public. • A new circulation spine is introduced at each public floor level; in particular at first floor level a line of offices is removed to accommodate this circulation route, providing a new linear art gallery space (will be value engineered). • New and enlarged toilets are provided close to the main entrance at ground floor level. The toilets are more generous than currently and include both an accessible WC and a Changing Places space. • The reception and shop are relocated to address the new entrance; in addition, secure lines are established through sliding pocket doors (also providing fire compartmentation) so that in an extended hours situation the front of house area can be opened up independently of the whole museum. This front of house area would include the café space, reception, and toilets, and could be used for a variety of events and functions with or without using the theatre space. Accordingly, the whole arrangement of functions within PMAG are made more logical to the benefit of public and staff alike. • A new education space is proposed in a space currently under-utilised for storage to the rear of the Staffordshire Hoard, supplemented both by the education / conference suite.