We were approached to design a new contemporary theatre building in an area with a high density of arts, music and community venues. The 1,600-capacity theatre will sit alongside other similar-sized spaces to strengthen the wider cultural offering.
The venue needed to provide a modern auditorium alongside front of house, workshop spaces, administration and back of house facilities for touring theatre companies as well as the local performing arts community.
At the heart of our proposal lies a highly efficient modular structural frame and cladding system, optimised for maximum spans and minimal construction time.
We embraced this simplicity of form with a restrained external material palette of polycarbonate, stainless steel and profiled metal cladding, defining public and private spaces with varying levels of translucency.
Key to our approach has been ensuring optimal efficiency of the main house and audience flow. Simple, outrigger structures house stair cores and back of house facilities, providing direct access to the auditorium, foyers and exits to manage high volume flow and limit noise breakout.
The auditorium is conceived as a refined and intimate space in contrast with the industrial exterior, lined with warm natural timber panels. Levels have been carefully controlled for audience accessibility and to maximise the number and choice of wheelchair seating positions.
To the rear, the stagehouse allows level access from truck beds to the workshop spaces and stage to minimise get-in and get-out times for production teams.
Currently in the early stages of development, this performing arts building will provide an exciting new venue able to bring some of the world’s most popular shows to new audiences.
Designed to be inherently flexible, the scalable size and capacity of front and back of house spaces will allow future operators full control of required occupancy levels.
