The Malthouse Theatre, wins AJ Retrofit Award

Our project with Tim Ronalds Architects was victorious in its’ category, ‘Cultural Buildings £5m and over’ at the AJ Retrofit Awards 2021 last night.

The redevelopment and conversion of a Victorian Maltings has given a semi-derelict building a new lease of life, and provided The King’s School, Canterbury with a unique and extensive drama and dance facilities. The theatre was designed to the highest specification and comprises all the facilities that you would expect to find in a modern London West End theatre.

The conversion was described by judges as combining ‘a freshness of approach while sensitively retaining the character of the existing building’. They commended the repurposing of what had been a semi-derelict building for the way it preserved the building's qualities ‘tonally’ and yet created a very flexible, practical facility.

The replacement of the windows, removing large modern insertions and restoring small openings to match the remaining original ones, was particularly noted as a simple but very successful move.

For more detail on the work undertaken by Buxton, please see https://www.buxtonbuilding.co.uk/post/2018/11/12/the-malthouse-completed

The AJ Retrofit Awards programme is one of the most highly regarded in UK architecture and celebrates the design, engineering and construction excellence that prolongs and improves the life of our built world.