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© Keith Williams Architects
© Keith Williams Architects
© Keith Williams Architects
For architect Keith Williams, a priority was to create a high
impact building with it’s own personality as opposed to one inspired by the local historic context, says project architect Matthew Green: ‘We talked about it in the office as a form of relaxed classicism, using words like clarity, simplicity and good quality materials, all detailed in a sophisticated way. We wanted the theatre to have several distinct elements, which clearly connect to give a clarity to how the building is read.’ When it’s completed in Summer 2011, the Marlowe will be
one of the tallest building’s visible on the Canterbury skyline, and during planning careful attention had to be paid to its form and composition. English Heritage was heavily involved and the architect was required to complete a study comparing the heights of various structural elements in relation to the nearby Cathedral and their impact on views across the city. A particular concern was the pyramid-like pinnacle added to the top of the existing fly tower, which was created to give the theatre a more iconic feel. Issues related to the choice of materials were crucial to the
entire scheme, says Green: ‘For the planners to take on a very modern building in a historical context they had to ensure the materials promised at design stage were of the same high quality. So even though it’s a design and build project we worked up to RIBA stage E before ISG became involved.’ A range of exciting cladding and surface materials has made
it onto the envelope including traditionally hand-worked copper covering the second auditorium block, panels of
sparkling white dolomite over the external collonade, more contemporary silver-coloured Kingspan insulated panels on the main auditorium block and fly tower, and a woven steel mesh that encloses the fly tower walls and its pinnacle. The pre-crimped mesh, supplied by Potter & Soar, is raised
600mm above the surface of the tower on metal arms to create a transparency effect and different areas of light and shade depending on where one stands in relation to the theatre. Unusually, the mesh is also stretched across the angled roof of the pinnacle, says Green: ‘Normally this stuff is used on large flat walled buildings, such as industrial buildings or car parks, in which case it is easily tensioned from horizontal to horizon- tal. But the pinnacle slopes and one side is longer than the other, so it has been tricky for the structural engineer, Buro Happold, to tension it correctly for all the various angles.’ Working in a medieval city, perhaps the greatest risk for a
construction team is encountering archaeology. So when ISG unexpectedly uncovered the remains of an ancient Roman town house when digging the hole for the theatre’s third stair core, it had serious implications for the construction pro- gramme, as Overall explains: ‘The town house had some rare features including a Roman form of under floor heating, known as hypercourse, plus surviving coloured plaster work, which had to be investigated. We were facing costly delays to the programme that could run to over 10 weeks.’ Rather than simply accommodate a delay, the team’s ingen- ious solution was to redesign the stair core using steel instead
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