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Child’s play Building theatres for children –

new UK venues, the Egg and the

Unicorn, show the way forward

CHildren’s tHeatres

Main pic: Children explore the Eggtheatre in BathBelow: Some of the ‘Young Consultants’, who helped develop London’s new Unicorn Theatre

Susan Barnes

Patrick Baldwin

aNNa doWNiNG

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K ids today, eh? When they’re not yabbering into their mobile phones, they’re either glued to their Playstations or feverishly surfi ng the net – leaving little

time for more traditional, cultural pursuits such as a visit to a museum, let alone a trip to the theatre.

However, London’s Unicorn Th eatre and the Egg in Bath off er frustrated parents a refreshing change when it comes to their children’s entertainment, as well as their education.

What diff erentiates these theatres from other children’s venues is that the children themselves played an active role in designing them. As a result, the theatres are not only tailored to their specifi c desires, but the children and the schools involved in the projects continue to enjoy a special relationship with each venue, encouraging them to become much more interested in the arts.

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Make believeThe Unicorn Theatre was founded by Caryl Jenner in 1947, with its first permanent residency taken within the Arts Theatre in London in 1961. “We named the theatre after a unicorn because he is an exciting figure of legend, a thing intangible and uncatchable; he exists only if you believe in him, and we feel this is a stimulating idea for children,” explained Jenner, before her passing in 1973. By 2005, Jenner’s dream of building a purpose-designed theatre for children in the heart of London was finally realised, when the new £13 million Unicorn Theatre opened its doors on a dedicated site on Tooley Street, just minutes away from London Bridge.

When designing the new venue, the theatre and its chosen architect, Keith Williams Architects, chose to involve 30 eight-year-old children from a local school, in a consultation process that lasted over three years. Dubbed the ‘Young Consultants’, the kids provided first-hand feedback on how they experience theatre,

ensuring their thoughts were taken into account at every stage of the project.

The consultation also provided unparalleled learning experiences for the pupils, including 38 interactive sessions at the school with the Unicorn team; and the production of ‘Transformations’ – a film about their work. The children also worked with a range of artists to create art, poems and stories about theatre and the Unicorn; and had their artwork displayed on the hoardings around the construction site. They also visited London’s Design Museum and various theatres across London for inspiration. Finally, they worked with architecture students from South Bank University to create 3D models of the Unicorn’s foyer.

“We spoke with the children to find out what they felt made up an exciting building,” explains Raj Patel, principal consultant at Arup, the acoustics, structural and services consulting firm for the project. “A large-scale model was produced by the architects and was displayed for the children to assess. As a design team, we stood on

Clockwise from top left: The Unicorn Theatre; the 350-seat Weston Theatre; the ‘Grand Stair’ leads to the main auditorium; transparent areas allow the public to see inside

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the periphery listening to what they were saying about the spaces, and which vantage points they were looking at it from, and used what we heard to feed back into the process.”

However, The Unicorn doesn’t look as you would expect a children’s venue to look, especially one with such raw input from the kids: “The Unicorn Theatre eschews the brightly coloured blobs and wonky shapes more normally associated with designing for children,” explains Keith Williams from Keith Williams Architects. “Instead what has been created is a grown-up building for children .”

Tony Graham, artistic director at the Unicorn Theatre, believes that the children’s participation was hugely beneficial for all involved: “For many of the children working with us, it was their first exposure to theatre and they were hugely enthusiastic. We were able to harness their energy and sense of wonder through dialogue and creative activities that linked in with schoolwork and directly helped us in forming the designs for the new Unicorn Theatre.”

As for the kids, Dominique, a Unicorn Young Consultant, sums up the benefits of such close involvement: “Now we’ve got the confidence in our own ideas, and the confidence to express them.”

Little things for little peopleThe Unicorn is comprised of two theatre spaces: the 340-seat main auditorium called the Weston Theatre; and the 120-seat Clore Theatre. The building is rich in child-scale detail: the stages, balconies, seating, and in particular the form of the main auditorium, were all designed with special consideration of children. “The building includes details specifically for children, such as a second handrail at low height on the main staircase. Also, the auditorium seating is bench style, with low backs to allow sight lines to work for small people,” explains Williams.

“Another example is the toilets – unless you keep the children in mind, you will be using a 6ft average height instead of a more accurate 3.5 to 4ft height,” adds Petrus Bertschinger, planning and operations director at the Unicorn.

“Also, where do you set your signage?” continues Bertschinger. “Who are you speaking to with these signs? You can set them up where the adults can see them, but will the kids see them as well?”

Listen carefullyThe acoustic design of children’s venues is a particular challenge. “Acoustically, the primary consideration was to ensure very high speech intelligibility,” says Arup’s Raj Patel, referring to the Unicorn Theatre. “The way we listen and understand speech is related directly to the strength of sound from the source, in this case the actors and the timing of reflections received by the audience. The ear uses sound reflections received within 50 milliseconds (ms) positively – they help with our understanding of the original sounds. Reflections received later than this reduce our understanding of the words. The room shape and form was developed to maximise the reflections from any point on the stage to get to the audience within 50ms. Every surface is located or shaped to ensure that this occurs. The surfaces materials are sound reflecting so that even the quietest sounds can be heard, and their location pinpointed on the stage even in very low dramatic lighting situations. The intention was to maximise the potential for dramatic effect and ensure effortless engagement of the audience. All this is integrated seamlessly within the architectural form.”

Above all, the overall design for the building needed to excite and capture the imagination of younger audiences, which was something that was considered from the very outset: “The architecture and planning reflects this, providing platforms to view the open public spaces from many vantage points, while the shape of the lobby spaces and use of full- and partial-height glass gives these spaces a different relationship to the street, spaces and views outside,” says Arup’s Patel. “The idea was to create change from the arrival point in the building, through the lobby, to more intimate, well-controlled and quiet spaces, corridors and walkways leading to the theatres themselves, so arrival at the final space has dramatic theatrical impact – to give the children that real sense of awe and excitement in the performance they are about to experience.”

Hatching an ideaThe Egg theatre in Bath, UK, is a part of the Theatre Royal Bath, which was built in 1805 and is one of the oldest working theatres in the country. The Egg, a new 125-seat children and young persons’ theatre, puts on productions by and for children, as well as workshops for budding young actors and actresses. Its building was a culmination of a successful £2.25 million capital appeal to turn the old Robins Cinema, situated next door to the Theatre Royal, into a dedicated theatre for children and young people.

The Egg was designed in response to a brief drawn up by a group of 20 kids aged nine to 18, ensuring that it met the needs of the very people it was intended to serve.

Where the Unicorn puts on performances solely by adults, the Egg also has children in its casts. This was an important consideration in designing the theatre, as the child actors needed to feel confident in front of the audience, which meant getting the right sense of command over the audience from the stage. Anne Minors, principal designer of Anne Minors Performance Consultants (AMPC), which was theatre consultant on the refurbishment of the Theatre Royal Bath in 1998-99, and was retained as theatre consultant for the Egg, came up with the ideal seating arrangement for children, both as actors and as audience. She designed the stalls floor and stalls seating with a vertical change in audience eye level from the front to the back of

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Clockwise from top: The Egg in the heart of Bath; individually coloured seats; stage Below: Staggered seat heights so all ages can feel comfortable addressing the room

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the stalls of 1m, but with a change in floor level of only 450mm. This puts the eyes of the front row of the audience at toddler level on stage and the back row at teenager eye level, so that any age would feel comfortable addressing the room.

AMPC held a workshop with children from the theatre to find out their priorities for the seats. Comfort ranked highly, as did individuality and a sense of cohesion of design. Also, the children liked to make the seats seem bigger than they actually were. Stacking chairs, removable covers with individual designs, lightweight benches, and a sofa bench were among their ideas. In response, Minors and her colleagues developed a variety of benches and sofas for the seating on the floor and tip-up benches on the balcony.

The architects, Haworth Tompkins, wanted to identify individual places and create a more playful and dynamic environment. The design team used horizontal panels of different colour reds with vertical divisions between the cushions. AMPC made models of the seats to test out the finished look with the architect and client. Leather arms and backs were preferred by the theatre to survive the wear and tear of moving the seats. Both stalls sofas and gallery seats were made by Steeldeck and upholstered by Kirwin and Simpson.

Staying true to the name of the theatre, the engineers Buro Happold came up with an innovative structural solution that inserted a tightly fitting elliptical 125-seat auditorium into the rectangular shell. The raking steel structure avoids the existing historic building’s foundations and respects its original fabric, while forming the auditorium’s distinctive and intimate egg shape.

The seating well is expressed in the ceiling as an oval yolk of an egg, padded with yellow felt and surrounded on all sides by a reflective ceiling finish, giving apparent height to a low space.

Door handles, glazing panels and toilets were all designed to be as user-friendly for a four-year-old as for an adult. Above the theatre is a rehearsal room for workshops with panoramic views of Bath, again visible by a young person.

Since opening in 2005, both the Unicorn and the Egg have proved a surefire hit with the kids. A comment from one of the Young Consultants says it all: “Just go there – it’s a lot better than sitting in front of the TV. ” n

AuthorAnna Downing is Assistant Editor of Auditoria magazine

Teen screenThe Leiria, a New Lineo Cinemas multiplex in Portugal, boasts a total of eight halls, including a ‘Kids room’ outfitted with Tango seating from Figueras, which is upholstered with children’s motifs from Disney. Other halls include the ‘Romantic Room’, which is furnished with the Loveseat Kasandra – a seat with fold-down armrests; and ‘scary rooms’, where the seats are upholstered with horror motifs, and have built-in speakers. Together with customised seating, the décor of each hall also contributes to its unique, thematic atmosphere.

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The seating workshop where the children created mock-ups of their ideal seats