Designed through an international collaboration between London-based Haworth Tompkins, New Zealand’s Athfield Architects and structural engineer Ruamoko Solutions, the new Court Theatre represents a significant investment in the future of performing arts in Aotearoa.
The project utilises timber elements as key parts of the building’s structure, cladding and interior finishes to meet the technical and aesthetic drivers of the project, creating a world-class, sustainable facility that restores an essential cultural institution to the city’s civic and creative life.
The new theatre is conceived not simply as a place of performance, but as a fully integrated production house. It includes a 379-seat main playhouse, a flexible 130–150-seat studio theatre, rehearsal and education spaces, and extensive workshops for set building, costume making and props creation, alongside public amenities such as a café and bar.
To cater for this complex programme, paired with the rigorous acoustic requirements of theatres, a hybrid structure has been adopted, pairing the warmth, tactility and fire-resistant properties of mass timber with precast concrete and steel elements. The expressed pinus radiata LVL structure to the foyer and upper levels becomes a defining feature of the spaces it creates and responds to the client’s explicit brief to create a ‘warm, open-hearted building’. Externally, this language is continued through the use of treated pinus radiata glue-laminated columns.
Not on show but of equal importance, pinus radiata CLT is used extensively in the theatre spaces to create very shallow floors with integral fire ratings, allowing the extremely low floor-to-floor heights that were sought to maximise audience-to-actor connection. CLT is also used extensively and innovatively in stair treads. This timber structure has significantly helped to minimise the building’s upfront embodied carbon to an estimated 450 kgCO₂e/m² (A1–A5).
Extensive collaboration was undertaken between the design team, main contractor, mass timber supplier and installer to coordinate mass timber elements with the surrounding steel and concrete elements, leading to a seamless installation on site despite different installation tolerances across the structural materials.
Externally, thermally modified Abodo timber is used as feature cladding at street level. This is not commonly seen in urban environments but has been selected to offer a tactile edge to the building that encourages passers-by to pause and engage with the activity on display within the theatre.
Timber is used extensively internally as a durable, sustainable and warm finish to complement the timber structure. West Coast blackwood is used throughout the foyer floors; triangular pine battens form part of the acoustic panelling throughout the public spaces; and a range of plywoods are used throughout as wall linings to provide robust finishes that support the varying acoustic absorption, reflection and isolation requirements of the theatre.
The intentional and selective use of timber elements throughout The Court Theatre, in combination with a range of other materials, has been critical to the success of the project and to achieving the client’s ambition for a warm, open-hearted and sustainable performing arts venue.
