Skelly & Couch worked on a spectacular new home for the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts on a site behind the Stirling Prize-winning Peckham Library in south London.

The Bridge Theatre is London's first new commercial theatre of scale for four decades. The 900-seat auditorium is the flagship home of the London Theatre Company, with Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr, who led 12 years of artistic and commercial success at the National Theatre, at its helm.

A highly sustainable, professional‑grade performance A highly sustainable, professional‑grade performance and creative hub.

An EPC ‘A' rated cultural hub with a 400-seat auditorium, rehearsal, teaching, and support spaces. Key features include ground source heat pumps, a hybrid ventilation system, and a 13 KW PV array. Winner of the 2019 RIBA National and RIBA East Awards.

Set within the historic grounds of The Perse School in Cambridge, the new Peter Hall Performing Arts Centre (PAC) honours its namesake through artistic and environmental excellence. Conceived as a social heart for the campus, its triple-height galleried foyer serves as a café by day and a gathering space by night. The building includes a flexible 400-seat auditorium, daylight-filled studios, and full back-of-house facilities. Skelly & Couch delivered the full MEP design for the professional-grade theatre, ensuring exceptional comfort, energy efficiency, and performance. The project achieved an EPC ‘A' rating and won RIBA National and East awards.

A glazed façade brings abundant natural light into the foyer and interior spaces, establishing a visual connection with the courtyard ahead, while the auditorium also maintains a strong link to the outdoors through daylighting and views to the greenery behind.

Comfort and efficiency are further enhanced by a ground source heat pump that supplies efficient, year-round heating and cooling. Optimal air quality is maintained through automated windows and a mechanical ventilation system, partly powered by a 13kW rooftop PV array, cutting emissions and reducing reliance on the grid.

For over 80% of the year, the auditorium relies on silent, natural ventilation via under-seat plenums. Warm air rises and is exhausted through two large, attenuated chimneys, preserving acoustic isolation. Mechanical ventilation activates only during full-capacity performances.  This sophisticated sustainable design merges aesthetic appeal with practical performance to create an environment that is both comfortable and conducive to the arts.

At the heart of the school community, the Peter Hall PAC breathes life into theatre through its strategic embrace of sustainability—nurturing a space where future voices rise, explore, and shine.

Awards

2019 RIBA National Award Winner
2019 RIBA National Award Winner
2019 RIBA East Award Winner
2020 Cambridge Design & Construction Best New Building Award (over £2m) Commendation
2020 Cambridge Design & Contruction Craftsmanship Award Winner
2020 Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award Winner

Sustainable centre within a historic landscape

A new centre with a unique, low-tech environmentally controlled and daylit gallery; restaurant, commercial kitchen and retail space. Heated by an air source heat pump and wastewater dealt with on site including a biodiverse swale system. Shortlisted for the Stirling Prize 2019.

Founded in 1977, the park is set in a former quarry on the estate of the 18th-century Bretton Hall. It was the first of its kind in the UK and remains the largest in Europe. The open-air gallery features works by renowned artists such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

To enhance visitor experience and address reductions in public funding, a new visitor center was completed in 2019. Designed by Feilden Fowles, the 2016 Young Architect of the Year, the centre harmonises with the historic landscape while providing space for temporary exhibitions of 20th- and 21st-century artworks.

Skelly & Couch carried out full services design at the high-profile cultural destination, where the building’s internal climate is optimised for natural control as much as possible. Confronted with a site having no gas or drainage connections, a limited electrical supply and restricted services routes and zones around the building, some inventive engineering solutions were required.

Natural ventilation, solar control glazing and a green roof prevent overheating, ensuring a comfortable indoor environment. Inside the gallery, 10,000 unfired clay bricks form an innovative low-energy environmental control system that maintains optimal internal conditions and significantly reduces the reliance on air conditioning.

Complementing this, a sophisticated control system and humidity buffer—incorporating hygroscopic materials—work alongside a standard thermal wheel heat recovery unit to regulate temperature and humidity. A highly efficient scheme was developed using an electric heat pump to deliver both heating and domestic hot water to basins, eliminating the need for conventional hot water flow and return systems and thereby reducing energy consumption by over 50%. Additionally, underfloor heating provides a consistent sense of warmth throughout the space, even during periods of high visitor traffic and cold weather outside.

Designed with sustainability at its core, The Weston preserves the integrity of its setting while enhancing visitor comfort, engagement, and the Park’s cultural offering.

Awards

2019 – RIBA Stirling Prize Finalist

2019 – RIBA National Award

2019 – RIBA Yorkshire Award Winner

2019 – RIBA Yorkshire Building of the Year

2019 – RIBA Yorkshire Client of the Year

2021 – Civic Trust Award Winner

2021 – Civic Trust Awards Regional Finalist (Yorkshire & Humberside).

2022 – EU Mies van der Rohe Award Nomination. It was one of 18 projects longlisted in the UK, among 449 works in 41 countries featured. 

The project involved the full refurbishment of all public parts of the BREEAM ‘Very Good’-rated Hall for Cornwall and the creation of a new multi-layered auditorium, which reveals the stunning historic fabric of the building to maintain its core cultural purpose to entertain.

Skelly & Couch is contributing robust environmental engineering to all 16 buildings of a new and pioneering creative hub on the Greenwich Peninsula. The Peninsula is London's largest single regeneration project. 

This long-running project with the Bush Theatre has achieved gradual improvements to the building over 6 years, and Phase 2 continues the integration of new with existing services.

Preston Bus Station, designed originally by BDP and completed in 1969, is a renowned, Grade II-listed Brutalist building, which Skelly & Couch has helped to return to its former glory through modern technologies and sensitive refurbishment techniques.

The competition to refurbish and extend the Vajrasana Buddhist Retreat Centre transformed the original retreat – a makeshift collection of farm sheds in the heart of the Suffolk countryside – into a modern haven of spirituality.

The historic Richmond Adult Community College, which has its roots in the late 19th century (1895), has been given a new and sustainable lease of life by an impressive refurbishment and new-build development, meeting the highest standards of energy efficiency.