Frân Wen Youth Theatre – ADC

With a focus on supporting young people from low-income backgrounds to take part in the arts, Frân Wen works to create exciting, challenging and inspiring Welsh-language theatre. Having outgrown its previous building in Bangor, the company sought a new home that would reflect its ambition to promote Welsh-language culture as relevant, exciting and contemporary – deserving of investment to thrive. The new location represents a major upgrade for the group, giving the young people it supports a dedicated state-of-the-art rehearsal space in which to hone their skills in performance, scriptwriting and technical disciplines.

An impressive example of a mid-Victorian church, built in the Gothic style by craftsmen using distinctive local materials, St Mary’s was designed by HP Horner in 1864, Grade II-listed in 1951 and closed in 2014 after 150 years of use. The exterior is defined by a striking octagonal spire and original stained glass, with walls featuring rubble stone with freestone dressings, including crucifix finials, plinth bands, quoins, stepped square and diagonal buttresses adding a decorative flair to the interior.

Manalo & White’s approach respected the architecture of the Victorian building, introducing vital conservation work and essential repairs to meet the needs of future users, and opened up the space to the surrounding landscape, creating numerous plant beds to nurture a positive ecosystem with local flowers and trees.

The conversion brought considerable change to the former church’s nave and undercroft, significantly expanding the capabilities of the site. Nyth now provides three main artistic spaces, with the biggest accommodating up to 80 guests and smallest suitable for breakout sessions. Technical facilities include sound and lighting equipment, costumes and props, workshop tools and screens for presentations. The young company now has access to a green room, and there are dedicated offices and meeting rooms for Frân Wen’s admin team. The extensive outdoor area can be used for open-air rehearsals and community events.

Manalo & White took additional inspiration from the names of both Frân Wen (‘White Raven’ and Nyth (‘Nest’), recycling as many materials from the site as possible, in the same way that a bird sources fallen twigs and branches to assemble its nest. Pipes from the organ, ceramic tiles, and stone from demolished walls have all been reclaimed and repurposed, and 90% of the church’s existing wooden pews have been reinvented as wall panelling, doors and joinery.

Crucial to unlocking the potential of the site was improving access. As a church, St Mary’s offered no step-free entrances, and updating the Victorian architecture to allow equity of access posed a significant challenge. Manalo & White resolved this by utilising the overlooked undercroft below the raised main floor and creating a new, level entrance, further eliminating a stigma attached to wheelchair ramps.

From this main point of entry, people can head towards the cellar studio and public toilets, or take the stairs or elevator up to the second floor where the main rehearsal room and office are located. Warm lighting and soft acoustics create a relaxing ambience, while low-height furniture invites people to rest and make the space their own. A dark ceiling, bright walls and the existing stone and columns create contrasting textures, giving the space an appealing tactility. Manalo & White’s work makes the church’s undercroft usable by excavating the first three bays to the base of the existing foundation, and the creation of a mezzanine with steel frame and metal deck with raw concrete floor opens up the main hall and lends further acoustic separation.

Reflecting a shared commitment to sustainability, Manalo & White and Frân Wen set out to achieve BREEAM’s ‘Very Good‘ rating, which represents only the top 25% of the UK’s new non-domestic buildings. The Manalo & White team recognised the natural benefits of the pre-existing church structure, and were therefore keen to retain as much and minimise ‘active’ interventions, such as installing a mechanical cooling system. Relying on natural ventilation makes a major contribution to the sustainability of the project, while dramatically reducing its impact on the existing architecture.

Because the site is within a residential area, it was essential that any natural ventilation didn’t result in noise pollution. The large openings required to allow airflow in and out work against good sound insulation, which demands a sealed building envelope. Manalo & White squared this circle by designing a series of acoustic chambers, each of which are lined with sound-absorbing material, to enable performances to let it go, volume-wise, without disturbing the neighbours.

The practice was also committed to repurposing and recycling materials – old wooden pews for doors were repurposed and demolished stone walls were rebuilt. Use of natural materials, such as lime plaster and wood wool insulation, as well as the decision to leave walls unpainted, facilitate natural ventilation.

Energy is sustainably provided from air source heat pumps. All the theatre equipment, control and LED lighting are energy efficient. Renovation work was completed using locally sourced materials and FSC-certified timber. Significant enhancements to the landscape, designed to optimise habitats for native plant and wildlife species, were made under the guidance of an ecologist and the North Wales Wildlife Trust, based nearby.

Manalo & White reinstated the site’s previously closed main entrance on Garth Road for both pedestrian and vehicular access, and introduced a beautiful meandering path to the main building through the reinvigorated woodland. Having been disused for a number of years, the site required extensive landscaping work. Overgrown trees were pruned, while newer native species have been carefully selected to complement the preexisting yew and lime trees, with bird and bat boxes added to enhance the biodiversity and ecology of the area. A community orchard incorporating Welsh species has been installed, along with numerous beds with local plantlife dotted across the garden. Parking spaces are strategically positioned around the site to minimise the travel distance to the nearest accessible entrances while avoiding the usual repeated row-of-cars layout, which would be detrimental to the character of the setting.

Manalo & White associate Takuya Oura, said: “Nyth belongs to young people We learned from them that spaces typically designed for ‘kids’ can be off-putting, and what they really wanted was a humble setting for creative exploration. We drew inspiration from honest conversations – challenging them and being challenged. The result of our collaboration is a robust building with a natural material palette, where they can freely mess around and stretch their imagination.”

The project was delivered with funding from Arts Council Wales, the Welsh Government, the Heritage Lottery Fund and others.