About the building
The House was constructed with minimum environmental impact and with access and flexibility at its core
Design
The House has been designed with access and flexibility at its core. The foyers, the corridors, the large and smaller performance spaces have been imagined as venues that can be linked in performance.
At a glance:
- The entire main auditorium and studio space have fully sprung floors
- Above the main auditorium is a wall-to-wall, state of the art tension wire grid that allows wheelchair access to the lighting grid
- The main auditorium has retractable seating. When extended it can seat 216 people
- It has full wheelchair [access] across the entire building
- When the seats are out, the performance stage area is 14m x 12m – it can be adjusted using black tabs to be any depth
- Winner of the 2014 Abercrombie Award for Design Excellence and Innovation.
Construction
The House was designed to be constructed with minimum environmental impact. Here are our green credentials:
- 25% of the building materials came from recycled sources
- 70% of the construction waste was diverted from landfill and instead recycled or reused
- Occupied spaces make maximum use of daylight. Electric lighting is switched on by detectors only when people are in the space and daylight levels are not sufficient
- A water tank on the roof collects 20,000ltrs of harvested rain water that is used instead of mains water for uses such as toilet flushing
- The building’s occupied spaces are entirely cooled by natural ventilation, removing the need for electrical air conditioning.