Diocesan School for Girls Music and Drama by McIldowie Partners and Upton Architects
Channel: A As Architecture
Date: 2018-06-19

Architects McIldowie Partners and Upton Architects wanted to celebrate the school’s award-winning music, drama and dance programmes by designing a new creative home for students. The new building accommodates music practice rooms for soloists, ensembles, orchestras and choirs, and sprung-floor performance studios for drama and dance troupes. 

Acoustically-isolated recording and percussion studios are wired into the performance spaces to professionally capture and engineer the music produced. Internally, each windowed doorway offers glimpses at the activities within the rooms, inviting curiosity and ambition. Every student can aspire to be in the band, the orchestra, the chorus.

Externally, the building design is a deceptively simple three-storey form that sits alongside the school’s splendid Chapel of St Barnabas, built in 1854. The architects wrapped the building in a gently faceted ‘curtain’ of perforated aluminium lacework, reflecting the rhythm and movement of music and drama. This subtly undulating veil shifts in tone and shade throughout the day, cleverly filtering the harsh western sun through an intricate woven leaf pattern. Source by McIldowie Partners and Upton Architects.

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