Building Standards

[the kid]

There are a couple of private schools down this way who have got a space, and a couple that look EXACTLY the same. Not sure on who did the work but the differences looking at spec and plans are minimal. They work quite well as a space as it is designed to be a theatre, and one does run more theatre than school.

 

Are there any private schools locally to have a look at their theatres (newer obviously).

 

Some 6/7 years back we were asked "would you like a theatre on the rebuild" we said "yes!". By meeting 2 it was decided that there could be a theatre but the space required meant that sport should also use it and we would have a sport floor with all the marks and hoops either side. We politely declined and removed ourselves from the project.

[paulears]

The 'community' aspect is the key issue. Having a space available to the public, enables extra (or sometimes entirely) external funding. The Fire Station that was built to replace an old, larger one at the rear of my house was built using the scheme. There is a room designated as a community resource. The community, however, are unaware the space is 'theirs' - as nobody actually told them. When the builder developing the rest of the site wanted a public meeting, they used it - much to the surprise of everyone.

 

This means for schools and colleges that the new build is not just theirs. Hence the dance classes and other activities.

 

Schools and colleges also have to justify their use of space. Performing arts always fare badly in these documents. A small 6 x 6 classroom may be able to accommodate 30 people at desks, but dance fares very badly with perhaps 10 people in a 10 x 10 space - making them appear over endowed with floor area per student. To get new build large spaces, many schools and colleges HAVE to use the community tag to improve their space efficiency, to the detriment of the education. Tom Howard has a really well designed space in his school, amongst the best I've ever visited. This contrasts to new builds at others in the same County that made one entire wall of a dance studio glass, so people could look in, which for modesty reasons got covered in sugar paper - a studio space with light woodwork on floor and walls that is impossible to make dark. The architects who we've frequently had a pop at, in their defence, are building what the schools ask for. They are not building theatres. Very rarely do schools get a theatre, they get a flexible performance space which they call a theatre. An important distinction. Teachers are given plans at an early stage for comment. I smiled when I read storage space, because storage space is one of those bad things to have for floor area usage, hence why rotten old sheds are provided often a fair way away - simply because decent storage and dock space which I agree is essential, cannot be incorporated into the design for fear of compromising the application!

[Jivemaster]

The issue with my old school which was used for community purposes and the subsequent leisure centre using that hall and a sports/leisure centre was that the halls had to be clear for school use every day. basically nothing could be left from one night to the next night. You could never put on a show needing the usual town hall style of production week -set build tech, dress, and four shows.

 

Both the hall and stage were corridors used during the day.

 

Also that leisure centre totally prohibits taking photographs on site I held a reunion for the class of '72 there we were all in our 50s but the venue refused to let us take a group picture for "child protection reasons", -noting that we were in the BAR where there are no children by statute law.

 

"Community use" is a fiction that doesn't fit with schools.

[Giles Favell]

To be a success, you really do need a Theatre Consultant.....And before you start 'designing' or having meetings about design, a Brief must me agreed, for all the reasons already stated, clarifying the uses, the priorities and the operation - so the thing doesn't trip over itself in practice!

A good consultant should be able to help you with all thse things, and help you avoid the pit-falls. It is better to iron out operational idiocies at the initial stage, rather than find they make the end product unsusable afterwards.

The Building For Schools program did nothing good for school theatres, as they fell headlong into most of the forseeable traps - whereas most of the school theatres built with private funding are to a reasonable standard, as they usually incorporated Professional advice.

[bruce]

I think boatman's involvement was much the same as mine - we've had very similar experiences (identical venues, same managing agents, separated only by 14 miles of water)

 

I managed to get sight of the tech spec for the venue before construction. It looked like the supplier had just cranked the handle on their "school-hall-o-matic" generator - eg sound system specifying "dual cassette decks" etc. I produced a fairly detailed report commenting on the design, and submitted it to the powers-that-be. Of course, it was completely ignored. Since then, we've been struggling to get the venue up to spec, with mixed success. Boatman's had more success than me - perhaps that's cos he's on an island community, or perhaps he's more tenacious :)

[alistairhammond]

The secondary school I just left had a new drama studio/classrooms built around 2005 (I think), so allow me to share some of the problems we've encountered with a building that has been poorly designed. Though primarily used as a teaching/performance space, it is also hired out to the community, including the youth theater group I belong to. Here's a list of some of the problems I've come across:

• Double height doors to allow direct entrance into a cupboard scene dock. Supposedly so a scaffold tower, Zarges or flat could we walked or rolled straight in. The architects then ran a curtain rail right in front of the door, rendering it useless.
• A double curtain system around most of the edge of the studio. Some areas of wall are left blank for no reason whatsoever. It also still fails to provide a decent blackout from sunlight.
• Moving wall sections dividing the studio into two classrooms. The walls are a nice shiny white colour, and when moved open to form one studio do not have a recess in the wall to be stored in, so they still impact on the space.
• An unpainted wall made of very light coloured bricks.
• Doors that do not close quietly, do not lock open to allow scenery load-in, and have glass panels to allow light through.
• An upstairs office/control room which sticks out over the space and has windows that open, but no curtains or blinds to block off light. It appears to have been designed as a control room, but the teacher's desks and paperwork make that impossible.
• 5x 32a Cee-forms in the office for Betapack dimmers. The betapacks should have 63a connections, and the power is on the same phase as all the audio equipment = Lots of dimmer noise!
• A 16m, 16f XLR multicore that is paralleled between the control position in each studio and the office. Most of the connections are very noisy or badly made.
• 42x 15a connections across 7 IWBs, around 6 sockets are dead despite very limited use of the rig.
• 13a sockets and XLR connections at grid height - presumably for audio connections, but no-one can figure out where the XLRs go.
• Lighting bars in very odd positions that give terrible angles for most of the room.
• Projectors installed so they hang a meter below lighting rig, so they often get bashed by scaff towers.
• Lighting and sound equipment that is of fairly good quality (Z88 Frog and Betapacks, soundcraft mixer) but has never been serviced or maintained. For a recent show we had to replace 4 blown lamps in the rig that no-one had noticed.

That's most of the problems I can think of right now. While some appear to have been made by the original designers/architects, other appear to be installation/building problems, poor materials choice, and a lack of any maintenance program. Obviously, your space will be not be used in the same way as this one, but hopefully you can avoid letting people make the same mistakes that have been made here. As others have said, you could really do with some kind of theatre consultant who understands what your space actually needs.

[Jivemaster]

Add to my old school's features two way light switches one by the back stage lighting desk and one in the FOH area so we never new whether the house lights were out til the curtain opened.

[jexjexjex]

Hi Troops

 

Thank you very much for all your hints, insight and suggestions.

 

I'll keep you posted as to how tomrrow night's (Tuesday's) meeting goes.

[brainwave-generator]

From working in quite a lot of municipal facilities around here, I completely agree with Alistair's input. I would add:

 

• Moving wall sections dividing the studio into two classrooms. The walls are a nice shiny white colour, and when moved open to form one studio do not have a recess in the wall to be stored in, so they still impact on the space.

 

I don't like moving wall sections at all. They always always always break eventually, and you end up with either 2 half size rooms which can't be made bigger; or a big room that can't be made smaller. A local primary school here was designed so the classrooms were all on moving walls, so they could do double-size classrooms for teaching the whole year group, or whatever else they fancied. After about 5 years of no maintenance they now use it as the gym hall and the teaching is in portakabins on the football pitch because buying a few second hand was cheaper than getting the moving walls fixed.

 

• 5x 32a Cee-forms in the office for Betapack dimmers. The betapacks should have 63a connections, and the power is on the same phase as all the audio equipment = Lots of dimmer noise!

 

Power is always the worst thing. So few people realise that electricity even exists beyond the 13A socket, nevermind how little 13 amps is when it comes to generic theatrical lighting. The venues I've worked on recently we simply asked for 2x 200A 3P supplies to be installed, with camlock connectors. It's far less imaginative than purpose installed connectors for the equipment you tend to use, but it does make it much more future proof.

 

• Lighting and sound equipment that is of fairly good quality (Z88 Frog and Betapacks, soundcraft mixer) but has never been serviced or maintained. For a recent show we had to replace 4 blown lamps in the rig that no-one had noticed.

 

And yes, maintenance, public enemy number 1. Lost count of the amount of facilities I've been too where in some junk room somewhere there are Mac250s, Turbosound speakers, condensor microphones etc. Why are they here? They don't work. What's wrong with them? They're f---d. What do you mean? They just don't work. So theatre pays more to rent in Mac250s for their productions than a new set of lamps cost, or pays more to rent in a PA than it would cost to change the drivers in the old cabs. Ridiculous! Whilst maintenance contracts would be nice, I think the best plan for most buildings of this sort is to only install kit which is absolutely 100% idiot proof.

[dbuckley]

Add to my old school's features two way light switches one by the back stage lighting desk and one in the FOH area so we never new whether the house lights were out til the curtain opened.

 

We have a school not far away like that, heres the house light panel in the control room, and there is another similar panel in the corridor by the main auditorium entrance - apologies for the lousy photo. The top row of a dozen switches control the fluorescent lights, which most folks use as houselights. Ugh. I use just the PAR38s, controlled by three dimmers on the bottom right. One of which was busted the last twice I was last there, months apart.

 

http://davidbuckley.name/pix/khs_houselight_switches.jpg

 

The plan is that for all the fluoros off you put all the switches up except those with a red dot next to them, which you put down...

 

The only good point is that there is a switch (bottom left) for the excessively bright fire exit sign lights, so you can kill them for the bits when you need some dark.

 

A beautifully designed piece of technology. Not.

[Ashley R]

Surely you can just unscrew the front plate, and get a small flat head screwdriver, pop out the switches, and turn them around so they all face the same way (Of course with the power isolated!)

[themadhippy]

Surely you can just unscrew the front plate, and get a small flat head screwdriver, pop out the switches, and turn them around so they all face the same way

if there a simple 1 way circuit then yes ,however

and there is another similar panel in the corridor by the main auditorium entrance

makes it sound like a 2 way,were off might be up or down depending on the postion of the other switch in the circuit

[dbuckley]

I guess the subtext is think about house lights; nineteen switches is not a good implementation, even if it wan't nineteen badly implemented switches.

 

And this is a venue I use very rarely, so I won't be touching this at all!