Spotlight on: CPW Bristol Office
Following thirteen successful years in the South West, we shine a light on our Bristol team, based in the Vintry Building near Castle Park and St Nicholas Market. Chris Taylor, Associate, reflects on life in the Bristol office.
How do you find the Bristol office?
We’ve had an office in Bristol since 2011, but we’d outgrown the previous out-dated space and were ready for something fresh and new. The Vintry Building was a fantastic option thanks to its city centre location in the Bristol Old Town, as well as excellent transport links and local amenities.
We also really like the contemporary, industrial feel of the office – it feels much better suited to the company’s ethos and helps instil pride when we host Clients.
Why do you love being based in Bristol?
Bristol is such a vibrant city – it has a brilliant independent food and drink scene, lots of interesting street art (it is the home of Banksy after all!), and a beautiful old town centre with cobbled streets.
The team do weekly ”time-out” walks at lunch for anyone who would like to join, and Bristol is a fantastic location to just stroll around. It helps the staff bond and encourages healthy practices to get people away from their desks.
From a business perspective, Bristol is a great hub for the South West with its diverse range of projects and connections from the south coast and Wales.
How has life in the Bristol office been since moving to the Vintry Building?
It’s been great to have a nice new space providing a great environment for the staff and our clients. We really value the face-to-face contact and having a better, more collaborative office means we use it much more effectively.
Our presence in the region has really benefitted from the new location and has helped to forge new client relationships.
Our team has grown, and we are now working a large variety of sectors across the board; keeping the staff challenged and the work diversified.
Any highlights?
As a tight-knit team, you end up working very closely with everyone in the office. We really value our social activities; to get to know each other better and get some downtime after a particularly busy period of work.
We’re also really pleased to have expanded the team, taking the office total to 11. We’ve taken on apprentices, graduate engineers and a (much needed) office and admin support. They have all been fantastic additions to the team and 11 feels like a nice number – big enough to properly support our clients but small enough to maintain a family feel.
We’ve also worked on some great projects over the last few years. Standout schemes include a new-build 13-storey office block in central Bristol, the Refurbishment of Cardiff University’s School of Architecture, and numerous projects to help decarbonise the University of Reading’s Whiteknights campus.
We’re also currently working on a large defence project in Bristol’s Aerospace sector, and a huge multi-phase low-carbon retrofit project at UWE’s Frenchay Campus.
What is on the horizon for 2024?
2024 is already looking really promising and the staff are being kept very busy, with lots of further exciting opportunities landing. Our priorities for this year include strengthening our relationships within the higher education sector, better promoting our decarbonisation expertise, and building upon our healthcare experience.
As a people-led business, the culture of our Bristol office truly embodies our aims to keep an inclusive, flexible yet effective workplace and it’s great to witness everything our team has achieved over the past year both internally and externally.
To find out more or get in touch with the Bristol office, contact the team now.