Winners: Constructing Excellence South West Award for Conservation & Regeneration 2020
CSJ Planning are proud to be part of the project team which recently won the prestigious Constructing Excellence South West Award for Conservation & Regeneration following the successful regeneration of the Grade II Listed Old Bedminster Library in Bedminster, Bristol, now LUXE Fitness.
To realise the development for our client, the project sought the change of use of the entire Listed Building to a gym, resulting in the loss of existing office space on the first floor, and vacant art gallery space on the ground floor. Our planning justification for the development revolved around a number of noteworthy planning considerations including the prospect of reinstating the historic public use of the building, benefits to the viability of the local high street, and by highlighting local health inequalities and health accessibility issues.
In addition to the change of use, our client required significant internal alterations to the building to facilitate the gym use, including the installation of innovative expressed steel mezzanine levels on both the ground and first floor levels, significantly increasing available floor area - vital to the successful operation of the gym. The installation of such interventions required careful negotiations with both the Council's Conservation Team and Planning Officer. The presented public benefits of the scheme were recognised and considered to outweigh any harms, and the application was approved.
As part of the award process, the judges praised the quality and design of the scheme:
“A challenging project that has been executed to a very high standard”
“Excellent re-use of an old neglected building with innovative design sympathetically combined with the existing features”
The project has now been put forward into the National Awards which will be announced on January 29th. See the link below for information on the winners of all the categories: https://constructingexcellencesw.org.uk/2020-awards/
Architect: Design Storey (www.design-storey.co.uk)
Image Credit: Design Storey (www.design-storey.co.uk)
