The 2014 STC Awards recognized outstanding theatre design, with Stavanger Konserthus in Norway winning for its innovative building tailored for performances and audiences. Runner-up awards were given to the MAC in Belfast, which fosters an energetic creative environment despite its unfinished appearance, and Theater Speelhuis in Helmond, Netherlands, designed quickly within a church while preserving its structure. This year's judging panel included notable figures from the theatre industry, emphasizing the importance of functional and aesthetically pleasing design in performance spaces.

1. Si htline Summer 2014
STC Awards
The complex and difficult task of designing
buildings for performance requires sensitivity
to the needs of the performer and the
audience, and of those technicians who
bring the performance to the stage. It is this
particular expertise that is recognised by the
Society of Theatre Consultants Quadrennial
Award and we were delighted to announce
Stavanger Konserthus in Norway as winner
of the 2014 Award for Practical Excellence in
Design at ITEAC 2014 in June. From a fifteen-
strong short-list, runner-up prizes were given
to The MAC in Belfast and Theater Speelhuis
in Helmond, Netherlands.
An independent panel of judges is
assembled for each quadrennial award, and
this year comprised Karin Gartzke, Business
Development Director of Ambassador
Theatre Group; Jason Barnes, Production
and Operations Director of Bristol Old Vic;
and Ken Bennett-Hunter, Freelance journalist,
theatre producer and consultant.
Stavanger Konserthus, Norway
Set beside a large harbour the Konserthus
is approached on the public side through a
piazza bounded by tiers of granite resembling
a dry dock (it actually covers an underground
car park) that forms a natural outdoor arena,
raising expectations of the performances to
come.
The building is glazed to the harbour side
and part way along the piazza. Where the
skin becomes a solid material the line of the
change is inclined to resemble the bow of the
A-
cruise liners which occasionally moor in front,
towering over the landscape. On entry the
glazed foyer to the right is a cafe restaurant
extending to the harbour side. Opposite is the
box office and a wide corridor off which are
entries to the stalls of the Fartein Valen Hall,
a cloakroom and lavatories. To the left is the
Zetlitz Hall, which in flat floor mode can open
into the foyer to provide for exhibitions and
dinners. Discrete doors allow the management
to feed the front stalls audience in beside the
tier to spread the circulation routes.
A wide ceremonial stair starts to one’s
extreme left and rises overhead to the first
floor foyer which has a large central bar. From
here there is access to the Zetlitz, the amplified
music room, in tiered seating (end stage mode)
and to the concert hall balconies. High over this
first floor level foyer is a floating timber ‘ceiling’
— cantilevered from the corner of the concert
hall and linked to the ground only by a helical
staircase. This is in fact an upperfoyer used for
recitals and other informal music. Thoughtfully
is has been provided with its own grid!
The Zetlitz Hall (850 seated/i ,900 standing)
uses retractable seating units on lifts at the
rear of the auditorium to meet a permanent
balcony, and on orchestra pit lifts at the front.
A further balcony above gives a second
permanent tier and both permanent tiers
carry forward for a single row of seats on the
sidewalls to the stage. There are four lighting
bridges over the auditorium.
The floor can be flattened from the rear of
the stage to the rear of the auditorium and the
retractable units moved on air castors to any
- a-,,,
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Michael Holden,
STC Chairman
offers a personal
perspective on
the 2014 winning
projects
r 1,
Fartein Valen Hall
Photo: Stavanger
Konserthus I Jiri Havran
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2. Si htline Summer 2014
The project includes:
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200 seats on stalls and circle levels in a
horseshoe form with side boxes at both
levels
• Six wheelchair positions
• Stage 8.5m deep x 12.Om wide with hinged
proscenium
• Stage house 9.5m height to suspension grid
with 38 lines
• New technical level providing show lighting
bridges and follow spot positions
• New show sound system
• Removable front two stalls rows for the
orchestra pit with a piano lift
• Removable stalls seats for flexible staging
• Rear circle control room area, open to the
auditorium
• Infra-red system for hard of hearing
• Back lit cherry veneer tier fronts using LEDs
provide highly flexible house lighting
controlled through the show lighting desk
Design Team
Architects/Theatre Planning RHWL Arts Team
Acoustic consultant Arup Acoustics
Quantity surveyor Aecom
Structural engineer Conisbee & Associates
Technical theatre consultant Carr & Angler
Main contractor Overbury

3. Sightline Spring 2014
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position or stored beneath the floor. Lowering
the pit lifts provides a barrier for pop concerts.
The stage has a wing area on one side and
a grid over a conventional fly loft. The rolling
beams above the grid (the winched bars are
cabled under the grid) are rolled steel joist
sections on which girder trolleys carry chain
hoists to any point. The rolling beams can be
locked together to transfer chain hoists across
the stage and there is a special trolley to take
chain hoists from one truss bay to the next up
and down stage.
Behind the flying area there is a large
rear-stage the full width of the room with
suspension beams running up and down
stage and chain hoists. This hall is the
primary scenic space in the building and is
served by a huge scenery dock, which is fed
sideways from the loading dock. The scene
dock has quantities of palletised lighting,
trussing, curtains and so forth, all ready
to move to either hall and quite often for
external hire. The delivery area feeds the
main stage either through a wide lobbied
scenery route on stage left — long pieces
have to turn twice through 90 degrees to
feed onto the stage but one cannot fault the
space available to do so. The same loading
dock also serves the concert hall and at
the same level via its own (smaller) scene
corridor directly to the platform level.
The acoustic music hall (the Farten Valen
Hall, 1,500 seats) is in plan a conventional
shoebox with stalls and three balconies
(maximum over hang three rows) extending
horizontally along the sides and sweeping
round behind the platform to terminate at the
organ. Except that here the side balconies
are set off the wall to allow acoustic curtains
to be drawn out from vertical slots to reduce
the reflectivity of the sidewalls. Again it must
be said that the demands of the concert
platform push the lowest (choir stalls)
balcony a little too high but here the room is
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Zetlitz Hal!
Photo: Stavanger
Konserthus / Jiri Havran
Photos: Stavanger
Konserthus I Jiri Havran
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4. Si htline Summer 2014
so tall that the vertical scale is not a problem.
The hail is provided with Conan diffuser!
reflectors over the platform. Imperforate
ceiling panels over these extend over the
whole area of the hall. These can be raised
or lowered to completely change the volume
of the hall by about a quarter, substantially
changing the natural reverberation. I say
imperforate ceiling, but it is in fact provided
with a vast number of manual lift out pieces
for suspension points wherever they are
needed, and of course the whole of the hall
has a fly loft to allow suspensions where you
need them. Two mechanical traps house a
roller film screen and a reefer curtain as a
front curtain for stage performances — the
balconies have sails to close them off to the
refer curtain. This is a cumbersome device
and appears not to be used. There is a
similar trap and reefer curtain in front of the
balcony to replicate the acoustic absorption
of an audience in the rehearsal condition.
Backstage the accommodation includes a
home for a resident orchestra. Around a large
atrium are dispersed music practice rooms
(one for each section of the orchestra) and
individual practice rooms, dressing rooms,
offices, physiotherapy and gymnasium
facilities. The centre of the atrium at floor level
provides for catering.
p ti
I have never seen such a wonderful way of
integrating disparate artists, technicians and
administration without artificiality or pressure.
It is simply the dream facility.
Theatre Consultant: Aix Arkitekter, Sweden
Architect: RATIO Arkitekter, Norway
The MAC (Metropolitan Arts Centre),
Belfast
This is somehow a symbol of the ‘British’
way of doing things with a triumph wrested
from disaster. Two building contractors went
bankrupt, sub-contractors have not been
paid, making-good has never been done,
finishes are poor, except in the main triangular
atrium, which is the principle and linking
public space. The two theatres are simple
and quite rectangular. The larger one has
fixed seating with a manually variable front
stalls, shallow pit or seating. The smaller has
retractable seating. Both have very simple
equipment.
The modest level of productions demands
and the small team of technicians like this
simplicity, which offers the ability to use good
old-fashioned theatre skills to create what
you want simply and in keeping with the
predominantly young and enthusiastic users.
The art galleries are crudely finished and
lit but please the management who are able
to attract larger scale exhibitions to Belfast.
Just inside one of the two entrance doors to
The MAC is a medium-sized gallery open to
the atrium yet separated from it. It is splendid
drop-in arts space. By the other entrance
door is a children’s room, again open to the
concourse but separated from it. This was
very much liked by the judges.
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The MAC, Belfast
Photos: Carr & Angler
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5. Si htline Summer 2014
The large atrium at The
MAC
Photo: Ardfern
Squeezed into the site are rehearsal
rooms, offices for start-up production
companies and places for people to have
a temporary space in which to create.
The MAC hummed with activity. The large
box office and information desk sits at the
corner of the triangular atrium with a view
of both entrances, just as it should be. In
the atrium an apparently simple sculpture of
parallel copper wires spanning the void and
climbing up to “disappear” through a skylight
constantly lifts the eye and gives vivacity to
the space. A bar/servery across from the
box office serves tables distributed around
the ground floor areas in groups inside and
outside each entrance (sign-posting the
accessibility of The MAC) and in booths
behind a screen giving a sense of privacy.
The public toilets though are Barbican Arts
Centre like, underground and remote from
centres of activity.
In objective analysis the theatre spaces
are limited and dull and the galleries poor,
but The MAC thrums with energy and
purpose. The management love it and
wouldn’t change anything. It is drawing
new development into a part of Belfast,
which is just outside the very centre. In
short it fulfils the need perfectly, though
with imperfections. Indeed public and staff
affection for the place may be enhanced by
the very roughness of the edges.
Theatre Consultant: Carr & Angier
Theater Speelhuis, Helmond, Netherlands
This was designed as a temporary theatre in
an existing Romanesque church to replace a
theatre, which had burnt down. It had to be
erected very quickly (three months) and not
damage the fabric of the church.
Seating about 470 people in two tiers there
is a low riser stage, just above the raised
floor of the choir, though the front of the stage
extends forward into the crossing. The stage
has a fit-up grid at the highest possible point
between the walls of the choir equipped with
long shaft winched bars. The stage has a more
or less square playing area of nine metres
between the church columns and in front of
the retained high altar. The forestage part
of this area is capable of being masked to a
proscenium or left open with a church column
forced proscenium about a third of the way
upstage. There is a bridge at the No.1 bar
position which is double-sided just upstage of
forward the proscenium masking and a bridge
over the auditorium. A mixing desk position is
located in the middle of stalls tier and this has
a platform lift descending to under the tier for
the delivery of the desk and equipment.
There are two newly built ‘pods’ outside the
church, one providing front of house and box
office facilities and a link to the church through
the old confessional boxes. The second pod
provides for dressing rooms, a green room and
a delivery bay. The foyer is under the seating
and acoustically separated from the auditorium
only by curtained corridors. The cateringArchitect: Hackett, Hall McKnight

6. Si htline Summer 2014
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preparation areas are compressed into the
west porch where they can be acoustically
segregated from the foyer and auditorium. The
stalls tier rake is a little too steep pushing the
balcony higher than it should be and making its
rake very steep. In part this is to maximise the
foyer area but I suspect it is largely determined
by a desire for the rear stalls access gallery to
be level with the existing organ loft floor behind
the seating.
What impressed the judges, I think, was the
directness and dlarity of the front of house
route — entry, box-office, cloakroom and then
the main foyer, and the similar functionality
and clarity of the backstage areas. The
spaces felt right for the people who worked
here and for their audience. Also the fact that
the house seems to have met the needs of
the client and indeed created an enthusiasm
such that a disused school beside the church
is to become part of an enlarged theatre and
cultural facility weighed heavily in its favour.
And all this was achieved with the insurance
from the old theatre with enough left over for
the school conversion.
Theatre Consultant: Theateradvies by
Architect: Cepezed Architects
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