Ornate Interiors wins National Gypsum Trophy ceilings award for Bradford Live plasterwork

Ornate Interiors Limited has won the Ceilings category at the National Gypsum Trophy 2026 for its plasterwork restoration at Bradford Live, the former Odeon cinema in Bradford, the National Federation of Builders (NFB) said.

The award was presented at a ceremony at the Park Regis in Birmingham on Tuesday 20 October 2026. According to the NFB, the win means Bradford Live will represent the UK at the international Saint-Gobain Gypsum Trophy awards in Madrid in April 2027.

The NFB said the judges found that "Bradford Live stood out to the judges for the exceptional craftsmanship, complexity and visual impact of the finished project."

Jim Dodd, Contracts Manager at Ornate Interiors, who managed the Bradford Live project, said: "I am looking forward to the international awards next year, whatever the result. It is an immense achievement."

The work

Ornate Interiors, an NFB member and Heritage Approved Contractor, restored plasterwork and decorative features in the ballroom, bars, balcony fronts, staircases and turret ceilings of the former cinema, the NFB said.

Years of dereliction and water ingress had damaged the original fibrous plasterwork. The team manufactured replacement mouldings to match the original profiles and dimensions while adapting them for modern lighting and ventilation, according to the NFB.

The Finishes and Interiors Sector (FIS) said in its project library that Ornate Interiors' scope was to reinstate the original ceilings and features of the former Art Deco Odeon.

The original casts could not be kept. FIS said the fibrous plaster casts had all but perished and the jute hessian scrim and timber lath reinforcement had rotted, so the architects and client decided to re-manufacture all the mouldings with new sections rather than retain the originals.

Dodd said the company entered the project after a visit in May 2026 from Laura Wilson, its Saint-Gobain Formula representative, who advised it to submit Bradford Live for the 2026 trophy.

Earlier awards

The Gypsum Trophy adds to recognition the project received in 2025. At the FIS Contractors Awards, held at a gala lunch at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, guest judge Mike Hayes, previously of PwC, named Ornate Interiors' Bradford Live work as the 2025 Project of the Year.

Hayes said the project was an exceptional technical achievement that revitalised a historic building that had stood derelict for two decades, according to FIS.

The NFB release describes the heritage award won at the same event as Best Heritage Project in the UK; FIS's own winners list records the category as Plastering Heritage.

Bradford Live also won the Regeneration and Conservation category at the Constructing Excellence Yorkshire and Humber Awards 2025, according to venue operator Trafalgar Entertainment.

The venue

Trafalgar Entertainment said Bradford Live had taken more than £1m at the box office before its official opening in late summer 2025, and that a Family Open Day on 23 August 2025 welcomed more than 1,000 visitors. The operator said the venue would play its part in Bradford's City of Culture year.

Companies House records Ornate Interiors Limited (company number 03838243) as an active private limited company registered at Acorn Works, 534 Broad Lane, Stanningley, Pudsey, Leeds, with SIC code 43310 Plastering.

What happens next

Saint-Gobain describes the International Gypsum Trophy as an international competition for drywall systems projects using Saint-Gobain solutions, with Ceilings among its categories. The 15th edition awards ceremony is scheduled for Madrid, Spain, in April 2027.