PROJECT REPORT: CULTURAL, CIVIC & FAITH BUILDINGS 29
Bogle explains that by wrapping a series of “boxes” around the existing theatre auditorium, and creating a central courtyard, “it sort of creates a mini version of the town itself, almost a contemporary reflection of the way Hertford is.” The client “bought into that as an idea,” he adds, and it “allowed them to be able to describe it to other key stakeholders when they took them around the building.”
The five blocks surrounding the tower are contiguous, in an overall composition that’s deliberately “pushed together, with a lot of time having been spent thinking about the overall ensemble” says Bogle. Cinema and theatregoers enter via an aperture under one of the blocks, which “feels very much like how you get into a medieval yard space in some ways. but in a contemporary manner.”
One of the designers’ challenges was that
they “really wanted to pull those blocks back from the river edge to create space that you can walk along in front of the building.” However, the balance of the space required internally left “even less space to be able to do that; it took a lot of time, but it was worth the effort.” The original ‘malthouse’ fly tower remains, an angular metal-clad structure which refers to the nearby medieval tower. It is still prominent but the theatre auditorium it sits on is largely obscured by the cluster of five new volumes. The main overall difference brought by the additions is that the formerly single-storey buildings around the theatre have been replaced by two-storey blocks, three of which contain the new cinemas on their CLT-framed first floors. Bogle believes that retaining the auditorium and fly tower was partly justified by it still functioning as “an interesting form in the town,” as well as from a sustainability standpoint. When working with existing buildings, the architects profess an approach of “trying to keep as much as possible, which is obviously best for an embodied carbon, as well as a cost point of view and is a design challenge we enjoy.” This of course is balanced against the client’s requirements, and in this case the challenge of “how can we fit this stuff on the site?” The existing buildings to the front of the site were not able to support the upper levels required, so they were removed including the front-of-house functions. Adding to these existing spaces “wouldn’t have worked, and they were a barrier.”
ADF JULY/AUGUST 2024
© Hufton + Crow
The three blocks on the ‘front’ of the site which contain the cinema spaces are adjacent to the street – which the river rushes underneath at the northern corner. On the western flank along the river, the two further blocks contain, respectively, the entrance foyer plus two new cafes and hireable function spaces, and finally the studio theatre, in the block next to a medieval motte, which is given a new connection to the building and town thanks to a riverside walkway to be completed at a later stage.
Part of opening the building and its enviable site up to the community is the way the windows to the cafe “directly address the river.“ The hired function spaces are also enhanced by river views, but
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The architects’ brick facade concept echoed historic buildings, and included clear-glazed raised pattern sections
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