An revolutionary timber theatre for a small faculty in Berkshire by Jonathan Tuckey Design can be transformational for the varsity and its pupils, writes Veronica Simpson
Phrases by Veronica Simpson
Jonathan Tuckey Design (JTD) has established a powerful monitor document for delicate interventions and extensions to present buildings – a ability that has by no means felt extra related or necessary than in our present environmentally and economically-afflicted instances. And that want to ameliorate or improve what’s already there nonetheless rings true for the apply’s first stand-alone, new-build construction: a stupendous, bespoke theatre on the coronary heart of a college in Berkshire.
Horris Hill College is tiny: simply 130 pupils, aged from 4 to 13. It’s a personal preparatory boys faculty, for day pupils and boarders, set inside personal grounds with in depth parkland. In contrast to a few of its neighbouring personal faculties – Wellington Faculty, for instance – it isn’t blessed with any spectacular architectural frontages. The vast majority of buildings are unremarkable, purposeful, low-level red-brick constructions accrued during the last 50 years, other than the shed-like sports activities corridor, which was added most just lately. So the attractive, crimson, timber theatre that JTD has designed for the varsity is exceptional on many fronts.
Planted to the south of the campus, flanked by enjoying fields and wooded pastures on one facet, however in any other case surrounded by the varsity’s blended bag of buildings, the brand new David Brownlow Theatre (named after its main benefactor) transforms what was beforehand a featureless automobile park, with added prefabs, right into a city sq..
The auditorium seats 160 individuals, with a stage shut sufficient to stay intimate for assemblies and performances. Picture Credit score:Jim Stephenson
Constituted of cross laminated timber (CLT), prefabricated in Austria, it’s clad in russet-toned wooden fibre panels – their hues completely sympathetic to the pure setting and the adjoining red-brick classroom blocks – to create a richer, extra three-dimensional look, and likewise permit for passive air flow through each mechanised and openable home windows. Erected in 4 days over the summer time holidays of 2020 by 4 carpenters, with the within additionally hand-built by the identical staff, it’s no surprise the theatre appears like a chunk of finely crafted, bespoke, inhabitable furnishings.
The 160-seat auditorium and efficiency house is dominated by a big proscenium stage, sufficiently big to carry 120 pupils, however shut sufficient to the bench seating for headmaster Giles Tollit to really feel a simple reference to the viewers when giving assemblies, or when their roster of visiting audio system are onstage; curtains can collapse or increase the stage as required. Tuckey’s staff labored carefully with theatre specialists Charcoalblue to get the appropriate configuration of stage and seating, together with a big technical balcony sufficiently big for instructing small teams use the A/V and lighting expertise.
The acoustics are glorious, because of a mixture of deep blue undulating ceiling panels and gray acoustic wall panels. Little, if any, amplification can be required, making the house really feel much more pleasant and welcoming – two traits Tollit felt had been important to this house. There’s additionally a charmingly unfinished high quality to the inside, because of the untreated CLT body, which is left uncovered, and the sturdy benches (larch, CNC-cut to JTD’s designs and assembled on-site). It appears like a working, evolutionary constructing integral to the pupils’ development. The big timber body that fronts on to the ‘city sq.’ additionally has that engaging, unfinished high quality: a body over which to drape banners promoting particular person productions, or for use as a projection display or regardless of the pupil’s would possibly want.
It’s immensely interesting – and uncommon – to take a seat in such an efficient, high-quality efficiency house and be capable to look out of the home windows, partaking with shifts in climate or seasons, or by way of the glazed facet door on the lifetime of the varsity. These glimpses past the theatre appear to be a sensible and benign technique to calm the distracted younger listener. And the pupils appear to have absorbed and adopted this new civic house, incorporating it into their day by day routines, gathering across the casual out of doors amphitheatre (just a few benches overlooking the fields to the south), or across the new city sq. at break instances.
Making a theatre and efficiency house essentially the most architecturally important construction on the campus is a gesture that may have robust sensible, academic and cultural ramifications. Tollit was satisfied {that a} correct efficiency house – quite than the sports activities corridor, the place assemblies and occasions had been beforehand held – could be massively helpful to the pupils’ oratory abilities and, above all, their confidence. However it was Tuckey’s understanding of the micro and macro contexts of the design that helped them to win the invited competitors in 2016.
The outside timber body, on which might be draped ads for productions or a white canvas for video projection. Picture Credit score:Jim Stephenson
It was a leap of religion for each events, nonetheless. As Tuckey says, ‘We had by no means executed something in schooling at the moment, and had by no means executed a theatre. We hadn’t executed a brand new constructing. However we thought, “Let’s have a go and see what we give you.” One thing about our proposal ignited their enthusiasm. We had this notion early on that it wasn’t simply going to be a theatre.’ He noticed the varsity as a city, and the theatre as its centre.
Tuckey – who studied social anthropology earlier than design – understood Tollit’s view of the position that the performing arts can play within the well being of a neighborhood. ‘He’s a former classics scholar,’ says Tuckey. ‘He felt that theatre has such an necessary position within the lifetime of a neighborhood. Right here, you may act out all of the issues you aren’t permitted to do in public life – fall in love with the unsuitable individual, kill somebody to avenge your loved ones, and many others. In a pupil’s schooling that’s actually necessary. Boarding faculty is such a closed neighborhood, so having that form of launch is admittedly necessary.’
Tollit is clearly delighted with this new house and the way in which it displays the varsity’s values. ‘Drama and efficiency has all the time been a giant factor at Horris Hill,’ he says, ‘but there was nothing to show that dedication.’ However there are additionally fast impacts on behaviour, ‘From my perspective, the way in which the boys are as an viewers has fully modified. Within the sports activities corridor they needed to sit on the ground, and located it exhausting to not be distracted. Right here, the main target and the standard of the interplay between them and our company has been good.’
