The University of Worcester has won the Architects Journal Retro Fit Award for Riverside – its new specialist sports and arts facility.

The Riverside in Hylton Road was converted from a former car salesroom by the university’s architect KKE to incorporate a sports hall, specialist sports teaching rooms, a dance room and changing rooms with showers, as well as a large social learning and internet space.

The awards celebrate design, engineering and construction excellence that prolongs the active life of buildings instead of demolishing them.

Russell Pope, the university’s director of capital development projects, said: “We are delighted to receive this award for the Higher Education category and give full credit to our architects for producing such a strong and successful design.”