The Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is situated in the northwestern corner of Regent’s Park, London. The theatre consists of a reinforced concrete amphitheatre, which was built in the 1970s, and several lightweight structures dotted around the site providing space for offices, back-of-house activities, workshops, rehearsal studios and a box office.
Price & Myers has been working with the Open Air Theatre for more than 20 years. The latest works represent our fourth phase of development at the theatre. For this project we reconfigured and extended the technical gallery and control cabin, that Price & Myers originally designed in 1999, adding a new, continuous raised gantry for the lighting technicians.
New side and vertical extensions were added to the existing electricians’ workshop to create storage and workspace, and a link back to the technical gallery. The life of the technical gallery was also extended by cleaning all steelwork prior to the reapplication of corrosion protection throughout.
The project featured some unique challenges, including a very tight programme to complete the works in time for the 2023 Spring/Summer season of outdoor shows. All building works need to happen during the close season.
The site features a large number of protected trees, which meant new pad foundation positions had to be flexible. The main contractor undertook a series of trial digs to find appropriate locations free of tree roots. This approach represented a real effort to minimise the project’s environmental impact.
Price & Myers worked closely with the client to confirm the allowable movement in the lighting towers, resulting in a very efficient structural design. Bracing was only installed in one location where the client felt tower movement was excessive for the theatre’s needs. This process pushed the boundaries of design limits and resulted in a very low carbon project.
