The North Wall Arts Centre St Edward’s School, Oxford

PROJECT PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE

CLIENT

ST EDWARD’S SCHOOL

The North Wall arts centre at St Edward’s School, Oxford, includes a flexible, 250-seat ‘courtyard’ theatre, a drama studio, dance studio and art gallery. The design combines the conversion of a listed but disused Victorian swimming pool, the incorporation of an historic stone boundary wall and newly built elements. The swimming pool and outbuildings provided the enclosure for a new timber-framed theatre and support spaces, while the remaining accommodation is housed in a series of contemporary ‘barns’ arranged along the existing wall. A foyer and gallery space in the centre of the linear building allows direct access both from the town and school sides, reflecting the art centres dual role as a school facility and public building. The interior is made of simple, hard-wearing materials: polished concrete, stained plywood panels and natural plywood slats. High levels of insulation, combined with carefully sized windows, help to minimise the energy use in heating and ventilating the spaces. Externally, the walls and roof of the building are clad in unseasoned English oak shakes (hand-split shingles) and slender green oak slats (both carbon neutral materials), designed to bend and twist into organic, patinated surfaces that will vary in colour and texture according to orientation and exposure. The combination of vernacular forms, large frameless windows and a traditional cladding material give the building a rich, abstract quality, appearing both familiar and strange in the sensitive historic setting of the school and its immediate surroundings. The building announces itself quietly as a place for innovation and creativity.

COMPLETION DATE

AUGUST 2006

SELECTED AWARDS

CIVIC TRUST AWARD

RIBA NATIONAL AWARD

RIBA SOUTH AWARD

PROJECT

NEWBUILD AUDITORIUM, CAFE, FOYER, CLASSROOMS

CLIENT

AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER & HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Haworth Tompkins are working with the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University on a new performance and research centre, a keystone of the university’s emerging masterplan in the Boston district of Allston. Anchored around two highly flexible auditoria, the building will be an experimental cultural space that aims to be an active participant in the lives of the entire community of its users, from local people to international artists. In order to provide A.R.T. with an adaptable, future-proof ‘test bed’ for making and experiencing performance, the project seeks to maximise flexibility and creative opportunity throughout the building. The concept of ‘rooms with no names’ has emerged in discussions with A.R.T. and describes the ability for both front and back of house spaces to support a range of uses at different times: public gathering and refreshment; informal performance; rehearsal; making/assembly and community use. A robust, democratic and inclusive visual and material language is being developed to encourage engagement and hard use, while an ambitious set of sustainability goals, (including the holistic Living Building Challenge Core certification) will result in a new, regenerative cultural architecture for the coming century of change. Construction is programmed to begin in late 2023 with completion anticipated in late 2025.