Tullamore Arts Centre Competition
We proposed a translucent and transparent abstract modern landmark set in the heart of the Kilbride Park. The Arts Centre is placed in the north eastern corner of the park. It is a translucent glass clad three-storey volume. A contrasting tall thin basalt clad tower houses the freight lift and acts as a counter point to the main building while also marking the entrance. This dark column acts as a landmark from the junction of O’Connell Street and Kilbride Street and along the length of the adjacent canal. The entire site is treated as a single space within which the Arts Centre is placed like a sculpture in a garden. The hard and soft landscaping treatment is consistent across the site. Taking the strong east west thrust of the poplars along the canal bank, this transverse theme is extended consistently across the site, encouraging the visitor to perceive it as a single space.
Within the building our ambition is to create a theatre space that can be configured in any form with the capacity to engage fully with its’ magnificent setting. Instead of circling front-of-house and back-of-house functions around the auditorium and fly tower, this proposal stacks the dressing rooms, cafe and administration below the auditorium while placing the gallery and arts rooms above it. This frees three of the four facades of the theatre allowing them to be enclosed by an acoustic glass facade with concealed black-out blinds. Thus Kilbride Park can be the backdrop to a waiting Vladimir and Estragon if the theatre’s artistic director so chooses. The boundaries of real and the imagined can be blurred. The back wall of the theatre can also open, by means of stackable doors, to allow open air performance to the park.
The visual arts are accommodated on the top floor in a series of contemplative introspective spaces. These are deliberately separated from the performance space and the noise of the entrance hall and cafe. While the theatre embraces its’ surroundings, the quiet spaces of the gallery and arts rooms withdraw from them.
Finally the cafe, back stage spaces and administration are contained in the partially sunken lower level under the auditorium. The cafe connects directly to the park and faces a stepped area to cater for open air performances from the theatre above.
Within the building our ambition is to create a theatre space that can be configured in any form with the capacity to engage fully with its’ magnificent setting. Instead of circling front-of-house and back-of-house functions around the auditorium and fly tower, this proposal stacks the dressing rooms, cafe and administration below the auditorium while placing the gallery and arts rooms above it. This frees three of the four facades of the theatre allowing them to be enclosed by an acoustic glass facade with concealed black-out blinds. Thus Kilbride Park can be the backdrop to a waiting Vladimir and Estragon if the theatre’s artistic director so chooses. The boundaries of real and the imagined can be blurred. The back wall of the theatre can also open, by means of stackable doors, to allow open air performance to the park.
The visual arts are accommodated on the top floor in a series of contemplative introspective spaces. These are deliberately separated from the performance space and the noise of the entrance hall and cafe. While the theatre embraces its’ surroundings, the quiet spaces of the gallery and arts rooms withdraw from them.
Finally the cafe, back stage spaces and administration are contained in the partially sunken lower level under the auditorium. The cafe connects directly to the park and faces a stepped area to cater for open air performances from the theatre above.