Orange Regional Conservatorium

The Orange Regional Conservatorium's new theatre has an exposed ceiling. There is no suspended grid hiding the services, so the air conditioning ductwork, the structural steel, the conduit and the soffit are all in plain view above the audience.

In a performance space that is a deliberate decision rather than a saving. Blacked out, everything overhead recedes and the eye stays on the stage. Left in mill finish, a run of galvanised duct catches every lighting state in the room and pulls attention straight up to the ceiling. Getting that black consistent across duct, steel, brackets and fixings is what makes the void read as a void.

Almost all of it was elevated work. Mobile aluminium scaffold towers and a scissor lift, repositioned constantly to reach each run, working above a floor that other trades still needed. Spraying overhead brings its own discipline: everything below gets masked or moved, overspray has to be controlled rather than cleaned up afterwards, and the coating still has to sit properly on galvanised duct, painted steel and raw fixings, which are three different substrates within arm's reach of each other.

The theatre was mid-construction throughout, so the sequencing mattered as much as the painting. Access equipment had to come down and go back up around other trades, and each area had to be left safe at the end of the day on a site that never stopped.

See more of our commercial painting work or read about what we do across Orange.