Rethinking a Town Hall
Rethinking a Town Hall
Frome
In taking on this neglected but handsome Victorian Building, Frome Town Council had an opportunity to rethink what a town hall should be.
Type
Civic
Construction Budget
£500k
In keeping with Frome's fiercely independent spirit, the council were keen to explore just how much they could achieve and we started by setting aside the notion of a traditional town hall.
Our solution incorporated council offices and a beautifully refurbished chamber along with space for local charities and businesses to make the project commercially viable, meeting rooms, cafe and community hub.
The greatest challenge was how to unpick the unsympathetic recent alterations to the building whilst adapting it for modern use.
We worked closely with the council and local organisations to try to make the town hall as welcoming as possible and to make feel as if anyone could just walk in off the street.
It took very careful budget monitoring to make the scheme affordable and we also worked hard to ensure that a number of sustainability upgrades could be implemented in the future. Happily, the majority of these have now been achieved further enhancing the sustainability of this retrofit and repurposing project.
