Project Title: Regents Park Open Air Theatre
Location: London
Wood Species: DOUGLAS FIR, SPRUCE (AUSTRIA), BIRCH PLY
Product Description
The Project
Hidden amongst the trees in the grade 1 listed landscape of Regent’s Park, The Open Air Theatre is a much loved London institution. During the summer months the Theatre puts on two Shakespeare plays, a musical and a children’s production in a 1200 seat outdoor amphitheatre hidden amongst the trees in the picturesque park landscape.
Designed as a series of events in the landscape, the £625,000 project includes new toilets for the theatre itself and a new bar/rehearsal area attached to the Robert Atkins Studio, a space for small performances and corporate events. The new facilities are conceived as an extension of the romantic landscape of the theatre, a series of magical grottoes and hollows surrounded by hedges and trees.
Partially dug into the ground, the bar/rehearsal area forms an introspective cave-like entrance to the Robert Atkins Studio which is currently accessed directly from a Picnic Lawn outside. It provides a dedicated bar area for functions and is used as a rehearsal space at other times. A low strip window gives a view into the undergrowth and the pink glow of the evening sun floods down from an opening high on the west wall.
A new courtyard makes a discreet ante-space to the toilets where people can queue up at busy times or wait for friends. The toilet areas have red resin coated concrete floors spanning above the ground between mini-piles to minimise the impact on the roots from a nearby plane tree, a survivor from the original planting of Regent’s Park in 1811.
Wood has been used extensively, both structurally and decoratively. The walls above ground are all timber studwork on a primary steel frame, sheathed with birch plywood. The roof is made from Douglas fir joists and Douglas fir faced plywood, exposed on the underside. Following the English tradition of park buildings the external elevations are clad with green stained tongued & grooved softwood boards and concealed by planting, except for the studio entrance which is painted yellow and the entrance to the toilets which is lined with spruce.
The cubicles themselves are made from 42mm laminated spruce panels, opening directly onto the landscape, maintaining the poetry and dignity of the rest of the theatre spaces. Internally, the walls in wet areas are clad with 18mm phenlic-faced birch plywood so they can be easily cleaned. Elsewhere the walls are clad in 19mm laminated spruce panels (Tilly board supplied by MCI Timply). The female washing area has a glossy pink painted ceiling and its own window out into the park, a boudoir amongst the trees.
Using lighting and simple materials in unusual ways the new interventions extend the magical atmosphere of the performance into areas of the Theatre which are usually more functional.
Fairy lights will twinkle in the hedges, an ethereal setting for a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
BUILDING OWNER: NEW SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
ARCHITECT: PREWETT BIZLEY ARCHITECTS
BUILDER/MAIN CONTRACTOR: ASHE CONSTRUCTION
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS: PRICE & MYERS
JOINERY: ASHE CONSTRUCTION
