Sydney Grammar School Concert Hall

“ The new hall is quintessentially Sydney; the steel arches reminiscent of the harbour bridge, the walls of historic Sydney sandstone. The venue is at the heart of the school campus and will nurture the development of the students into the future.”

Dr JT Vallance Headmaster, Sydney Grammar School

Introduction

Largely underground, the concert hall lies at the heart of the school providing external landscaped, shaded and covered circulation and playground spaces.

Seating 1500 people for concerts and assemblies with retractable concert seating, the venue provides a flat floored area for examinations. There is also a regulation sized basketball court with substantial landscaping on the roof.

With walls of exposed bedrock, the hall is a distinctive addition to the school and Sydney’s complement of performance venues.

The Sydney Grammar School Concert Hall is an important addition to the constrained inner city campus of one of Australia’s first schools.

Concept

As the school remained open through the construction period and the budget was half that normally required for this type of facility, the greatest challenge was the site itself; a sort of non-site in the middle of the school campus, largely underground below a terraced and unusable part of the school playground.

The project achieved the clients’ aims in providing a technically excellent underground auditorium with a character complementary to its historic context through its use of exposed bedrock sandstone, steel and natural timber.

Sydney Grammar School’s brief was to create a first class performance venue in a highly constrained site.

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01 Concert hall02 Aerial view of concert hall03 Atrium and adjacent classrooms04 Yurong Street entrance 05 Arial view of basketball court

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To ensure school life was uninterrupted, modular, prefabricated components were utilised and major construction activities were programmed during school holidays.

The new level playground replaces a series of impractical terraces, providing a regulation size competition basketball court, perimeter shaded seating and substantial planting which is utilised as part of the school’s agriculture curriculum.

The new, level playground surrounded by planting and perimeter buildings forms an effective usable quadrangle, something the school has never enjoyed in the past.

The facility was built from the top down to allow students’ use of their playground whilst construction activities continued underneath.

Innovative Process

ACOUSTIC SHIELDING

LOW POWEREDSUPPLY FANS IN SHAFTS

LABYRINTH SUPPLY AIR SHAFTS TO BENEFIT FROM THERMAL MASS TO TEMPER AIR

RADIATORS

SUPPLY AIR PLENUM FOR AIR DISTRIBUTION

AUTOMATED HIGH LEVEL WINDOW DISCHARGE

Supplementing the already temperate microclimate, the mechanical systems are designed to maximise exposure of intake air to the bedrock by way of a ‘thermal labyrinth’.

All services are integrated campus-wide for efficiency and the new major plant facility is shared with the existing adjacent 800-seat drama theatre (formerly the school hall).

Large highlight windows provide substantial daylighting and day-to-day activities within the hall can be enhanced by minimal task lighting.

Sustainable Design

At the rear of the school the Yurong Street frontage, two classrooms were demolished to provide construction access, this created and new entry foyer, leading to a glazed, naturally ventilated atrium. The space is activated by classrooms on one side and a number of open stairs on the other. Three levels of galleries and stairs interconnect street level with adjacent rooms and the rooftop playground.

The separate entrance from Yurong Street enables the space to be hired by outside users.

The Entrance

The Hall

The hall will enable the school to perform an enhanced repertoire of large-scale works as well as providing space for sports and examination activities.

Technically, the hall provides a diversity of functional attributes: excellent sightlines and variable acoustics to suit a variety of musical performances, good speech intelligibility for assemblies and facility for video projection and recording.

For many years the school has had an established music programme with a high level of participation.

The stage accommodates a symphony orchestra and is framed by a faceted hardwood acoustic reflector that provides early reflections to the musicians and conceals a number of stage lighting bars. Overall, the hall achieves a reverberation time ideal for large-scale 19th and 20th century orchestral works.

At the stalls level, five rows of raked seating retract to provide a large flat floored area for examinations, wet weather activities, volleyball and social functions.

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01 Bedrock wall02 Stairs03 Concert hall04 Back of house area

Section Foyer Plan

Design Development

PTW Architects utilised 3D modelling tools to analyse parameters specific to the concert hall typology. Throughout the design development of the Sydney Grammar School Concert Hall, the model was used to examine and improve sightlines to the stage. The process was simple, efficient and easily communicated to the client. The model also ensured that the primary briefing requirement of excellent acoustics would be met.

At sketch design, the acoustic volume of the space was accurately assessed and then easily monitored. Detailed design of acoustic surfaces was also well served within the REVIT platform. Complex forms were modelled in several iterations to achieve diffusion as required by the acoustic consultant. Ultimately, the forms were clearly understood by the subcontractors and the result on-site is a high quality finished product.

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01 Hand sketch02 Computer generated image03 Perspective04 Physical model

Project Recognition

“ An underground auditorium is a bold and innovative solution to a school’s needs.”

Philip DrewInDesign Magazine (Issue No 53)

AwARDS

2014 World Interiors News Awards – Shortlisted

2012 AIA Public Architecture Award

ptw.com.au

ClIEnTSydney Grammar School

loCATIonCollege St, Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW, Australia

ARCHITECTPTW Architects

PRoJECT MAnAGER Morgan Moore and Associates

ConSTRuCTIon MAnAGER Southern Cross Projects

lAnDSCAPE ARCHITECT Context

SPECIAlIST lIGHTInG Steensen Varming

CoST PlAnnER / QuAnTITy SuRVEyoR WT Partnership

STRuCTuRAl EnGInEER Taylor Thompson Whitting

MECHAnICAl EnGInEER Steensen Varming

ElECTRICAl & DATA EnGInEER Steensen Varming

lIFT SERVICES Steensen Varming

FIRE & HyDRAulIC SERVICES GDK Hydraulics

FIRE SAFETy EnGInEERInG Grubits Associates

ACouSTICS ConSulTAnT Acoustic Studio

THEATRE ConSulTAnT RTMi International

ACCESS ConSulTAnT Morris Goding Accessibility Consulting

BCA ConSulTAnT Steve Watson and Partners

ConSTRuCTIon ConSulTAnT Baseline Constructions

HERITAGE NBRS & Partners

ARCHAEoloGy Cultural Resources Management

GEoTECHnICAlDouglas Partners

PHoToGRAPHySharrin ReesAndrew AndersonsMichael Yip