Patel Taylor

Performing Arts was the university’s fastest growing department, and the project was driven by the need to provide additional performance, rehearsal, recording and editing spaces on a restricted budget. Patel Taylor created a building with a single volume but carved it into the hillside, thus using the landscape itself to define the different types of space and creating a theatrical, exciting and unique setting.

Back stage and black box areas are buried in the ground while the foyer and rehearsal rooms form a plateau to the view, creating a dramatic, yet natural backdrop. Between the two boulder-like main performance spaces is a route that runs like a crevice between them, bringing the hillside into the building and showing how architecture unites the drama of the site with the drama of the programme.