The Depot Lewes has been awarded Best Public Service Building in the 2018 South East LABC Building Excellence Awards. The Local Authority Building Control awards celebrate achievements in the construction industry. They reward excellent buildings, outstanding companies, and partnerships and individuals that go that extra mile.
The Depot is a new three-screen community cinema on the site of the modest but much loved existing warehouse of the old Harveys brewery depot in Lewes. The three screens have been discreetly inserted within the saved brick shell, with the major design move being to attach a new glazed extension with the depot structure fully visible as the historic backdrop to the new box office, café bar, restaurant and film education and training facilities. Reflecting the historic site layout of orchards and meadows, the former tarmacked service yard is landscaped to provide a new public realm.
The project will now go forward to the National Awards later this year, where it will compete against the award winners in other regions across the country.
Carmen Slijpen (centre), Director & Programmer at Lewes Depot with the other winners