A polyphonic assemblage | Architecture Now

In 1925, The King’s School Previous Boys’s Memorial Chapel was accomplished in South Auckland’s Ōtāhuhu on 42 acres of whenua missed by Māngere Mountain. The college had relocated there three years beforehand from Remuera, the place it was established in 1896. The architect of this late-Gothic-style brick constructing, with stained-glass home windows set in stone tracery, was Richard Atkinson Abbott (1883–1954), himself a School ‘previous boy’. The chapel was a big constructing in Abbott’s grasp plan of redbrick buildings, every having its distinctive character and proportioning whereas adhering to ‘Collegiate Gothic’, a subgenre of Gothic Revival structure that was well-liked in Britain and the US for its associations with Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

A century later, Andrew Patterson, one other King’s ‘previous boy’, together with his group at Patterson Associates, has accomplished a fee for the varsity’s Performing Arts Centre/Toi Manawa (translated as ‘The Coronary heart of the Arts’), an extra signature constructing in crimson brick. In contrast to Abbott’s revivalist nostalgic type, reiterated in subsequent facilities behind his authentic buildings, such because the Nineties’ Centennial Complicated intimating Eighties’ PoMo-style, Toi Manawa is decidedly up to date whereas merging gracefully into the general surroundings.

The Performing Arts Centre contains the primary stage within the School’s 2018 Property Grasp Plan, which goals to enhance the campus expertise for guests, improve a student-centric surroundings and entice future pupils: principally, rising their participation within the arts. The centre adjoins The Nice Corridor (1971) and is sited aside on the identical axis because the chapel; its design transient referred to as for an orchestra room, a dance studio, a rock room, a recording studio, apply rooms and a 250-seat theatre with related educating areas and backstage amenities. The campus’ crimson brick ‘look’ was to be retained, alongside the low pupil-to-teacher ratio that the varsity proudly upholds, with a versatile auditorium modelled on Rangatira Q Theatre in Tāmaki Makaurau’s CBD.

The considered performing arts faculties conjures up imagery of enthusiastic extroverts and a vigorous assemblage of motion, sound and motion, with our bodies, voices and devices warming up and practising their crafts: probably the most gregarious instance being the well-known scene from the 1980 film Fame the place youngsters pour out onto NYC’s forty second Road to cease visitors and dance on the rooves of automobiles. This carnivalesque occasion appears removed from the collegiate restraint of King’s inexperienced fields campus, with its historical past of ‘previous boys’ and school motto, Virtus Pollet (‘Let Manliness Prevail’). But the brand new facility alerts modifications, with 1 / 4 of the scholar inhabitants now feminine and an rising dedication to the worth of arts training in an establishment based on the well-established triad of ‘Religion, Academia and Sports activities’.

For Patterson, on the coronary heart of this ‘Trinity of Values’ — creating spirit, thoughts and physique — lies “the philosophy of play” as “a non-hierarchical and spontaneous exercise that encourages connection to generate inventive studying and social advantages”. This was enabled by the sizable endowment from a single donor who stipulated spending it on the performing arts. Whereas ‘play’ is imaginative, collective, liberating and fun-filled, it essentially entails contestation, competitors and battle — inherent to dramatic construction — inside a peaceable context. Such dynamic rigidity is intrinsic to the structure as a vibrant accumulation of areas, belying the rationale of its orthogonally organized exterior and multi-gabled roof.

The constructing is sited on the japanese finish of the campus — boggy land requiring 20m-deep screw piles and acoustic insulation to dampen adjoining railway vibrations and highway noise — and its patternation of crimson and orange brickwork continues the varsity’s heritage custom, however by pre-cast tilt slabs with brick slips utilized. These present a delightful tonal impact whereas saving development prices and time. It nudges previous the unremarkable elevation of the octagonal Nice Corridor (1971), which was designed to observe the curving line of 100-year-old oak bushes between Abbott’s buildings and the northern sports activities grounds. This siting cleverly recesses the 1200-seat corridor whereas connecting at essential linkage factors to allow shared amenities. Toi Manawa’s sawtooth plan generates a 45-degree orientation inside the quadrilinear campus format, profiting from views by the oaks in direction of the taking part in fields. As a house-of-play, it addresses the trinity of the sacred chapel to the east, educational school to the south and embodied sports activities floor to the north. Its placement and planning encourage a ‘polyphony’ of efficiency types — as an brisk interweave of ‘many sounds’ that’s primarily visuospatial.

Fairly than separate dance, drama and music, the constructing’s three-dimensional association types a contrapuntal assemblage whereas recognising the need for acoustic isolation to nurture and refine abilities explicit to every kind. The centralised orchestra room with glazed wall straight faces the zigzagging entry foyer, affording an outlook to the grounds past; its triangular double-height void types a spatial knot with vertical views between flooring. A rock room additionally fronts the foyer, above which lecture rooms and apply suites are accessed by a sculptural staircase clad within the blonde plywood sarking that wraps partitions and ceilings. Numerous collaged supplies, faceted surfaces and room geometries recommend areas carved by sound and motion, particularly the dance studio with felt panels, angled timber ceilings and clerestory home windows.

The architects approached this constructing as a ‘dynamic speaker field’, outlined by the perforated brick display screen wall on the east-facing elevation with playfully undulating openings. Behind these, the music rooms are enclosed by sliding inside and exterior acoustic glass doorways, which might be passively operated by lecturers and college students. Throughout the constructing, these glazed partitions successfully present acoustic isolation. Though muffled apply might be heard from the corridors, any instrumental sound is completely dampened between the apply chambers. Nevertheless, the outside doorways can slide again to emit sound by the punctured wall, permitting the constructing to sound out no matter is being rehearsed inside.

The versatile nature of the auditorium, with galleries on three sides and adaptable flooring modules, presents an intensive vary of codecs — together with flat-floor catwalk and end-stage seating — offering an excellent surroundings for college students to discover. Referring on to Q Theatre’s 350–450-seat ‘flexiform’ auditorium — a venue I’m aware of, having formulated its preliminary transient and ‘courtyard’ configuration — this intimate 250-seat house offers an efficient kit-of-parts to attain a number of performer-audience relationships. Easy accessibility to overhead gantries allows secure technical instruction and experimentation, though sight strains from the management room are considerably restricted. Additionally, extra consideration might have been given to shared backstage altering amenities. The ‘inexperienced room’ (conventionally an actors’ lounge) presents needed counter tops and mirrors for dressing and make-up, and upper-level glazed lecture rooms present additional important house. Nevertheless, the back-of-house would profit from further bogs, showers and discrete altering rooms to accommodate extra effectively a spread of occasions in each the auditorium and The Nice Corridor, particularly for bigger teams of performers and numerous genders.

Tāmaki Makaurau typically lacks well-equipped and provoking efficiency areas, with professionals and group teams more and more turning to high school venues, equivalent to Auckland Grammar’s Centennial Theatre and Epsom Women’ Grammar Faculty’s Raye Freedman Arts Centre, for rent. Whereas Toi Manawa’s auditorium might productively supply an much more inspiring state-of-the-art facility, it’s principally centered as a educating house and would require not solely these needed backstage areas but additionally front-of-house facilities for ticketing and catering. Nevertheless, the welcoming foyer can simply accommodate meals and beverage by cell items. Presently housing a child grand piano, organ and harmonium, it might extra successfully fulfil its potential as a vibrant hangout house by judiciously chosen and well-placed furnishings whereas profiting from the deep window reveals for supplementary seating. Although this additionally applies to the outside patios shaped by the zigzag partitions, such furnishing requires a small extra funding by the faculty to animate the ability additional.

As I left my tour of the constructing, its lobby stuffed with college students who gathered round somebody taking part in the child grand piano whereas others utilised the adjoining administration workplace as a drop-in centre and much more practised behind the glazed partitions of the rock and orchestra rooms. The venue’s wonderful acoustics and architectural design allowed these overlapping occasions to coexist as a polyphonic assemblage efficacious for a performing arts centre named ‘manawa’ — which not solely means ‘coronary heart’ but additionally ‘breath’ and ‘pulse’ — efficiently rendering it certainly a vigorous venue.