Case study: Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama

General information
o Architects; BFLS
o Location; Cardiff,Wales
• Structural & Services Engineer; Mott
MacDonald
o Lighting Consultant;
Equation Lighting
o Theatre Consultant; Theatre
Projects Consultants
o Acoustic Engineer; Arup
Acoustics
o Client; Royal W Davis
Langdon
o Area; 4400.0 sq.m
o Project Year; 2011

` the college was established in 1949 as Cardiff college of music at Cardiff castle,
but has since moved to purpose-built accommodation within the castle grounds of
Bute Park near Cardiff university, it later changed its name to the welsh college of music
and drama.

Site location and context

The royal welsh college of music and

drama is conservatoire located in
Cardiff, walles.

The royal welsh college adjoin

an existing building on the
park-side site.

Although the building appears to

be single structure it is in fact three
separate new buildings and a
renovated existing structure. Each
performance space has been
conceived separately, the
individual components of the
building united under a single
floating roof, creating a whole yet
expressing the different functions
Having designed the performance spaces from the inside
out, the architect considered the best way to locate them
on the site. The key was to find a way to create a new front
door to the college which also embraced the view into Bute
Park. The concert hall is located at the north end of the site;
its elliptical form nestles into the woodland and allows the
path into the park to wrap around it. The Burton theatre is
located opposite the concert hall, so the two key
performance spaces frame the glazed, single-volume
entrance foyer, which offers spectacular views to the park
beyond.

Site context and analysis

Access roads
Green spaces

Built up area
Royal welsh college of music and drama comprises three
performance acoustically excellent 450 seat chamber
recital hall (The dora stoutzker hall), a 180 seat theatre (the
Richard buraton theatre’) as well as generous foyer areas,
a terrace overlooking Bute park and a new café bar
includes and rehearsal spaces, teaching rooms, studios,
library.

THE BUILDING
The client and design team wished to create a new façade for the college giving it the
civic presence it deserves and the client was concerned to achieve a clearly defined
‘front door’. The creation of a central foyer not only fulfilled this request but also
delivered a publicly accessible space with a cafe and stunning views west through the
mature trees of Bute Park.

The drama building forms a new

facade on North road while the
chamber recital hall, clad with
a timber screen consisting of
light colored cedar wood slats,
sits amongst the park’s mature
trees. Finishes of stone and
timber create a sequence of
warm and tactile interior
spaces.

• A triple height atrium and exhibition hall connects the separate

blocks under a single metal roof.
• The extended metal roof serves as emphasizing the entrance.
 The foyer has become one of the most popular civic spaces in Cardiff, a
new venue where students, staff and the public meet and eat and talk, with a
connecting balcony between theatre and concert hall offering.
The Dora Stoutzker Hall is an acoustically excellent 450-seat recital hall, designed
to accommodate a range of performance configurations, including soloists,
quartets, choir and chamber orchestra, as well as for full orchestra and
amplified groups. The acoustic performance drove the design of the hall. It is a
classic shoebox – long narrow and tall, with the audience arranged on two
levels, with seating wrapping around the platform at the upper level. Internally
the room is lined with timber acoustic paneling designed to create a warm
diffuse sound to match its rich golden appearance.
Linbury gallery

Versatile exhibition gallery can

accommodate up to 40 exhibition
stands and also be used for your
drinks reception
Includes up to 10 break out rooms
with audio-visual and wifi
facilitates, and include five large
state of the art studios
Technology

Heating and cooling the environmental strategy aims to capitalize on the

building’s inherent thermal mass to naturally heat/cool the building according
to the time of year. The performance spaces are the only air-conditioned rooms
– the remainder are a mixture of natural and mixed mode ventilation. The halls
are both acoustically and thermally massive allowing them to be used to
temper the environment of the public spaces around them. At 13m tall, the
foyer and Linbury Gallery utilise their height to create thermal stack effects
which ventilate them naturally. The overhanging roof shades the glass,
minimizing the need for cooling whilst the external vertical brise soleils shade the
rehearsal and set design spaces from the direct sunshine. The sleek design of the
college extends to the topside of the roof, which has been kept plant-free
through the ‘bottom-up’ building services strategy.

Construction

The individual components of the building are united under a single blade like
roof. Its distinctive floating appearance is achieved by separating it from the
new building using a 1m tall, glazed ‘shadow gap’ and setting the support
columns back from the building perimeter where they can’t be seen. As the
college building curves considerably, placing the support columns back from
the perimeter required cantilevering the roof all around the building edge by
between 8-10m. The southern end of the roof is supported at its midpoint by a
single tapering hollow steel column. Achieving this was far from straightforward
as the shape of this section of the roof tends to make the wind both lift and twist
it. Mott MacDonald prevented this by installing a diamond box truss to provide
torsional rigidity, enabling the roof to retain its slender dimensions.
 • Natural interior finishes of stone and timber provide warm and tactile
surfaces for the spaces. The interior of the courtyard theatre is the
exception with its use of rich purple colored finishes and fabric throughout.

• Sound absorbing fabrics is made of a recycled polyester blend fiber for its
inherent stain resistance, durability and easy to maintain.

• The drama building forms a new curved facade of Portland stone while
the cedar-clad recital hall sits among the woods adjacent to the existing
Curtain wall system.

• The curtain wall system is designed as a stick-frame assembly with weather

performance achieved by drainage and ventilation of the glazing
rebates. Drainage and ventilation is achieved via the mullion
on mullion drained or via each individual transom on zone drained.

Case summarization

✓ The most impressing thing about this building is the site relation to the
building the roof and triple floor foyer.

✓ The building is designed to take advantage of the surrounding.

✓ The foyer connects the spaces well, also creates a public space that can
relate the building with the surrounding. It’s also can be taken as a
insulation between the theater and the hall

✓ When entering from the outside the foyer provides an excellent transition
space creating balance between the spaces.
 All performing areas are covered with soft
surfaces so that the sound bounce and
create disturbance
The use of recessed lighting on the side of the
walls in the theater creates a comfortable
diffused lighting

Material

✓ The Portland stone used is a durable stone with good weathering

characteristics and good for exposed elements, so it’s a good choice

✓ Wood cladding offers protective and decorative design, outstands

thermaland sound insulations which makes good choice in using it in the
performance spaces, wood is natural material warm and comfortable
which goes with the naturalist approach of the design, also have a low
carbon foot print which makes the building sustainable.

✓ Curtain wall play a great roll in ventilation.

Form analysis
The form of the building is comprised of three independent forms.

G THE HALL