From an old sorting office to a new theatre, a loft/living space, and a studio/house. It was an unusual brief: the client, a theatre director, wanted a living space which would include a small theatre, somewhere “designed but that doesn’t live without me in it…..like a converted barn but inside a warehouse”.
On a budget of £180,000 RDA converted over 3,000 sqft of trussed roof warehouse and redbrick house from a crisis into a drama. The site included two open-plan brick warehouses, triple-height to the ridge with steel trusses, cast iron columns, skylights, Palladian-arched windows front and rear, and a narrow red-brick house at the end of the street.
The brief also called for a ‘white space’ for living and theatre, with a strong sense of the outside world even during a performance – at a time when our other theatre clients still wanted a ‘black-box’ environment. We inserted a raised gallery at the rear as a transition level and living space with small kitchen and actor/guest/office rooms beneath; we re-used the old fire escape stair rising over the centre and stage between the trusses to access a top-level private suite, including bathroom and terrace. The brick house has been developed next door as a home for the client’s artist son.
Featured in:
The Hill, November 1997
Carlton TV – Our House, October 2000
Fabric, May 2002