Snape Maltings, 2010

This project is a new addition to Snape Maltings’ internationally important music campus on the marshes of Suffolk’s east coast. The twin aims of the project were to protect the fragile ecology of historic architecture and landscape while significantly expanding the physical, technical and creative capacity of the campus. The new work includes a suite of professional rehearsal rooms and working spaces, building on existing music facilities by Arup Associates. The new project comprises a phased redevelopment of the former maltings buildings, the centrepiece of which is a new build orchestral rehearsal room, the Britten Studio, designed to complement the nearby concert hall. The room can be configured as a 350-seat recital hall for public use. A second workspace, the Jerwood Kiln Studio (converted from a derelict kiln building), can also accommodate 80 for public performances. Further practice rooms and support facilities have been formed within formerly derelict granaries. The central social space has been adapted from a storage barn sandwiched between older structures. Roof forms based on vernacular precedents and a palette of mellow reclaimed brick, reclaimed timber, concrete and Douglas Fir have been deployed to blend the new work into the existing spaces, extrapolating a process of accretion and gradual change that has been going on for over 150 years.

SNAPE MALTINGS, SUFFOLK CLIENT SNAPE MALTINGS

“The 350-seater Britten Studio, which will surely come to rank as one of the most attractive spaces for chamber music in Britain.” The Telegraph

350-seater Britten Studio, which will surely come to rank as one of the most attractive spaces for chamber music in Britain.”

The @sohoplace auditorium marks a new departure for contemporary performance space. Responding to impresario Nica Burns’ vision for a truly adaptable, intimate 600 seat West End auditorium, Haworth Tompkins, Charcoalblue, Arup and Tait have designed an intense, sumptuous room with multiple possibilities for artists and audiences to explore. Embedded at the heart of a new building by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, this project posed a radical challenge for the design team who were asked to deliver an adjustable thrust and in-the-round theatre, all within the tight spatial constraints of a dense Soho site. The answer is an innovative modular system of swing out arms and drop-in balcony cassettes, allowing the auditorium to be reconfigured using overhead lifting beams. The design was developed and reviewed in consultation with theatre show makers, first in model form through to full scale mock ups. Every inch of space was interrogated to give excellent sightlines from all seats. Balcony fronts in natural golden timber lend the space warmth and are acoustically modelled to both scatter sound sideways and reflect sound downwards back to the audience. These together with the inky blue seating continue the theatre’s colour scheme, set under a ‘starlit sky’ of house lighting. Noise and vibration from the Northern & Elizabeth lines below, and building directly above Crossrail infrastructure, brought significant acoustic and structural demands. The design solution houses the auditorium within a fully isolated acoustic box-in-box, isolating it from both noise and vibration. A set of state-of-the-art equipment including a large stage lift and trap room, overhead technical walkways, travelling bridges and a dedicated control room, completes the set up at @sohoplace - a highly adaptable, theatrically dense, acoustically precise and physically glamorous auditorium.

“This place has the bare-bones simplicity of Shakespeare’s Globe but an even greater intimacy.”

Evening Standard