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Norwich City Football Club Unveil New Academy Facility
Our project to provide a new Academy Facility at Norwich City Football Club’s Colney Training Ground has reached completion.
The improved training, sport science and education facilities are key to helping the club to be seen as a genuine leader in developing young talent and as a club that provides pathway and opportunity.The club hopes that the new home for the Academy will become a magnet for the best talent and the best developers of talent.
Following the Canaries’ recent partnership with Norfolk performance car brand Lotus, the state-of-the-art training facility has been renamed The Lotus Training Centre, and the all-new Academy building renamed The Lotus Academy.
The new Lotus Academy building project provides 11 new player changing rooms, two match official changing rooms, a player lounge, three training rooms with support offices, a match analysis suite and an open plan administration base for up to 40 staff.
The architectural response provides a dynamic, contemporary and professional facility befitting of the Academy’s Category 1 status – a place where young players can find inspiration and receive world class coaching.
A new gym block, which will be used by both the First Team and the Academy, sits perpendicular to the academy building, forming an ‘L’ shape, and has views out across the pitches. This facility significantly houses new state of the art gym equipment and significantly upgrades the existing on site provision, providing much needed internal and external training space.
Natural materials have been used throughout the scheme which follow the principles of biophilic design, an approach that responds to humans’ innate connection to the natural world to help, to create an environment and promotes health, wellbeing, productivity and creativity.
The timber cladding utilised externally is also referenced throughout the interior, which can be seen as you progress through the building. When users arrive into reception they are greeted by timber clad reception desk. Timber slatted ceilings can be found in reception, players’ lounge and staff break-out spaces, free-standing timber screens divide the office spaces from staff break-out areas to help block visual distractions and insulation backed timber panels in the board room attenuate reverberation. This approach is reinforced further into the finer details of the scheme with internal timber linings to the windows, in the notice boards which are oak framed and the edges and beading of the internal doors.
The reconstruction of the Academy Training Pitches has delivered first class training pitches that will be available for use all year round, ensuring the quality of the Academy Training Pitches meet the standard of the current first team pitches and increasing the usable pitch area by 15%.