Bath Abbey Footprint Project

by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

Client Bath Abbey

Award RIBA South West and Wessex Award 2024 and RIBA RIBA South West and Wessex Conservation Award 2024.

Setting out to improve the experience for worshippers, visitors, and performers, the brief for Bath Abbey’s Footprint Project was incredibly ambitious. As well as repairing and remodelling the interior of the Abbey, it involved creating new learning and music spaces beneath the pedestrian pavements of Kingston Parade. Led by architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, a multidisciplinary team has spent 12 years painstakingly surveying, planning, and implementing a highly complex programme of work. Particular challenges included taking up the Abbey floor, serious surgery to a Georgian terrace opposite, and excavation of a whole street in between.

Perhaps the project’s most radical aspect is the new underfloor heating system, supplied with geothermal heat from beneath the city, and contributing to the Church of England’s target to achieve net-zero by 2030.

Read the full citation from the RIBA Awards Jury on RIBA Journal.

Contractor Emery Contractors

Structural Engineer Mann Williams

Services Engineer Buro Happold

Environmental / M&E Engineer Buro Happold

Lighting Design Michael Grubb Studio

Conservation Contractor SSH Conservation

Project Management Synergy

Landscape Architect LT Studio

Archaeological Contractor Cambrian Archaeology

Quantity Surveyor / Cost Consultant Synergy

Gross internal area in m² 3294