The Neeld

The Brief

Chippenham Town Hall is a historic and culturally important building, dating back to the early 19^th century, serving as a hub for local government and community services. It is home to The Neeld Community & Arts Centre, renowned for performing arts and cultural events. Where the auditorium can accommodate 250 people, a box office, welcome area and hospitality space were much needed to keep up with the quality of performing arts on show. In addition, these new spaces would be home to wider community engagements such as workshops, classes and educational activities for people of all ages.

The Project

Where local designers, Simple Simon, were engaged to design this new facility, we were commissioned to deliver the production, or construction of the interior space. Ambitions for this space dictated a high specification design, that required our creativity, passion and experience to engineer build solutions that would present value, whilst also leading design and work scope priorities with all parties. Where the current building is a result of extensive renovations and expansions over the years, much of our work commenced with restoring the interior to former glory. For example, stripping back a layer of paint that had been applied to the Cotswold stone. Further to transforming the spaces into a befitting entrance and reception for theatre goers and the local community.

An example of value engineering is where the design specified Georgian fire glass laminated to fluted glass, we (worked with Simple Simon) and proposed reeded film applied to normal fire glass to present a similar look, without the added expense.

Chippenham Town Hall is a historic and culturally important building

The Neeld Community & Arts Centre, is renowned for performing arts and cultural events

To improve the environmental performance of the building, and ongoing running costs, we lined out all the perimeter walls and much of the ceiling with insulation.