Brighton Dome shortlisted for AJ Retrofit & Reuse Award

The Grade I-listed Corn Exchange and Grade II-listed Studio Theatre have been refurbished for a 21st-century audience, to provide a dynamic cultural venue for the city and the region. The project has been shortlisted in the Conservation and Historic (£5 million and over) category.

The AJ Retrofit & Reuse Award celebrate architectural expertise and ingenuity in the physical and environmental adaption and upgrade of buildings, and the reuse of building materials and structure in response to the climate emergency and changing requirements of use.

This year's revamped awards will cover 14 new categories chosen to be more appropriate to the discussion surrounding retrofit, spanning from adaptive reuse to decarbonisation to net zero retrofit.

Winners will be announced at the live ceremony on 11 September 2024.

Brighton Dome 

The project makes major technical and operational improvements to the venues, restoring and upgrading four existing buildings: the Corn Exchange, Studio Theatre, 29 New Road and the Church Street entrance, while a new link building captures a former courtyard space, providing a foyer and public and support facilities.

Essential conservation work to the listed buildings peels back the layers to restore hidden spaces and reveal them to the public. The brand-new foyer, top lit bar and gallery space, and a restaurant that opens out onto New Road improve the visitor experience and new toilets and circulation provide better facilities and accessibility for visitors, performers and artists. 

We were appointed to design building services to facilitate new performance spacing for Brighton Dome. The design incorporates a mixture of new and retrofitted systems to provide comfortable environments for the performance spaces. 

The plant's energy efficiency was at the forefront of the design process, working with an existing fabric, including the Grade I-listed corn exchange. 

Heat recovery and mixing boxes were installed in the air handling units to reduce the heating or cooling required, depending on the time of year. A central energy centre was kept online during the construction phase to maintain the operation of the existing theatre and museum that shared the same services. 

Dramatic daylighting throughout the new foyer reduces the need for any artificial lighting, and natural ventilation keeps energy use to a minimum. We have carefully integrated building services into the historic fabric to complement the architecture of the new foyer.