Installation at Chichester Festival Theatre

Project Overview

The Nest is Chichester Festival Theatre's new flexible performance and rehearsal space, designed to inspire emerging talent and engage the local community. It's a 120-seat studio theatre, built to complement the main Festival Theatre and Minerva Theatre.

With the grand opening this July, the entertainment venue is now ready to host fringe theatre, stand-up comedy, live music and interactive shows - it is the epitome of a multi-purpose structure designed for entertainment – and that is where we come in best. So, how did we do it?

The Process

The origins of ‘The Nest’ trace back well before it arrived in Chichester. It’s first iteration was in 2017 where the structure was designed and constructed with the ModTruss™ system (a lightweight, reusable framework) which was enhanced by a curtain walling system developed by us. This combination placed adaptability into large-scale architecture – a pioneer of its kind.  

The venue was produced for Pleasance and we chose to premiere it at The ABTT Theatre Show in 2017 after which it was shipped directly to Edinburgh for that year’s Edinburgh Festival. After proving successful as a mobile venue, the structure then spent several years in London as Pleasance Downstairs at Pleasance base in Islington. The venue moved for two months of the year to the Edinburgh festival where it was known as Pleasance Beside. This demountable pop-up space provided a flexible performance setting, supporting both the Edinburgh Festival and London’s Off-West End productions.

In March 2024 – seven years later - the Pleasance Theatre in London (where the structure was for 80% of the year) lost use of the space where the structure was being held, so the modular structure needed a new home.

Anthony Alderson the Director of Pleasance then brokered an arrangement with Chichester festival theatre in discussion with David Edelstein (our founding director) and Dan Watkins of Plann for the theatre to move on a semi-permanent basis to Chichester.

Chichester work in accordance with the Theatre Green book therefore it was important from start to finish that we needed to work with the principle of reuse and a circular economy.

We knew that there was no better way to do this than to repurpose the pioneering modular structural system that was being transported from Pleasance London.

After David & Lucy Edelstein reviewed the drawings and consulted with structural engineers, we involved our group company EEE Build to operate as the crucial link between design vision and real-world delivery. The team effectively translated plans into action, navigating the practical challenge of precise modular assembly without using heavy plant this was to ensure the sustainability of the Chichester site as it was a requirement to protect the tree root areas around the perimeter of the site.

Thanks to the leadership of Chichester Festival Theatre, supported by: Plann, Reed Watts Architects, Momentum Engineering, Skelly&Couch, Ascia Construction and EEE Build, the Meccano-style construction system inside the venue stands as a benchmark for Green Book-aligned practice. This project has clearly demonstrated how real-world constraints and green ambitions can coexist well – The completed ‘Nest’ is living proof of that.

From the Triple E Team:

“The pop-up theatre began during the launch of ModTruss at the ABTT theatre show with John Faulkener from Pleasance, the Edinburgh Festival and London theatre company. The seed was planted and we went to the festival to meet with Anthony Alderson (Director of Pleasance). Many concept meetings and budget discussions followed, but finally an affordable design that could spend 10 months a year at their London Base and 2 months a year at Edinburgh was confirmed. I am very proud to have been a key part of the process and involved in all the minutiae of the detail to make this pop theatre a practical proposition. After several years of travelling up and down the country all the key components have been reused to find a new home at Chichester where it will be used to encourage new writers, performers and creatives to experiment for their future careers. Myself and everyone at Triple E are proud to be associated and involved with this fantastic project.” 

David Edelstein, Founding Director, Triple E

“It was an invaluable experience working so closely with Plan and getting to see how the construction process is developing to successfully deliver modern modular structures such as this. The Theatre Greenbook is doing a fantastic job at focusing people’s attention on how to reduce waste when putting on a production. We would love for the portable venue model setup for Pleasence and now Chichester to become an industry standard helping to improve sustainability in the theatre and events industry - As we feel that fully reusable venues like this are the future.”

Lucy Edelstein, Managing Director. Triple E & EEE Build