Atmos Brunel sits within the wider Atmos Totnes masterplan and Made Community Right to Build Order. The project is led by Totnes Community Development Society (TCDS), a Charitable Community Benefit Society committed to pioneering community led development in a way rooted in local economies.
The work of AK.A and TCDS achieved Listed Building Consent to repurpose the derelict Brunel Building as part of the wider Atmos Project development. The intention is to revive it as a working building providing a mix of venue and workshop accommodation along with restaurant, cafe space and community facilities to be preserved in perpetuity under community ownership, for long term community use.
The designs and uses for the Brunel Building came out of the same exemplary and highly innovative community consultation process as Atmos Totnes, but the Brunel Building is a grade II listed structure and was therefore required to achieve Listed Building Consent as a condition within the Made Order of the wider Atmos Totnes site.
The building was constructed in 1848 as the Totnes Pumping House forming part of I.K Brunel’s South Devon Atmospheric Railway experiment.
The refurbishment of the Brunel Building forms part of the first phase of work on the site to realise the Atmos Totnes masterplan. Other works included in the first phase are the new public realm proposals and the construction of the new Energy Centre.
The integration of public realm design in front of and around the Brunel Building has been key in creating a new welcoming space to Totnes from the mainline railway, which then links into the Brunel Building glazed entrance lobby, and links to a wider ‘way finding’ strategy to the rest of the site.