Brighton College Building, Drama School Sussex, English Education Project, News, Design, Image

Brighton College Music and Drama Schools

Sussex Education Development design by Eric Parry Architects, England, UK

21 Mar 2017

Music and Drama Schools for Brighton College Shortlisted for RIBA Southeast Awards 2017

One of fourteen buildings shortlisted for RIBA Southeast 2017 Awards:

RIBA Southeast Award for Music and Drama Schools for Brighton College

16 Jan 2013

Brighton College Building

Design: Eric Parry Architects

Eric Parry Architects’ Music and Drama Schools for Brighton College get planning consent

Two new buildings housing the Schools of Music and Drama designed by Eric Parry Architects for Brighton College have been granted planning consent. Brighton College, an award-winning co-educational private school, was established in 1845. The college is on a campus to the east of Brighton City Centre, within the College Conservation Area.

image from architect

The new Music School, adjacent to the College’s Performing Arts Centre (PAC) built in 2000, will provide a new hall for concerts and orchestral rehearsals, practice rooms, music classrooms and music storage facilities.

The recital hall of the Music school faces north towards the sports field, known at Brighton College as the Home Ground. Responding to the gable ends of the Grade II listed dining hall and the main school building designed by George Gilbert Scott, the elevation consists of a ‘floating’ pitched roof with a curved apex and a fully glazed façade to the recital hall.

The roof is a composite steel and timber structure with cantilevered ends, finished in glazed ceramic tiles. The glazing is a steel curtain walling system with high performance low iron double glazing, achieving a 51dB acoustic rating. The side walls are finished with self-supporting limestone.

image from architect

The Drama School will provide a new theatre, as well as back-of-house facilities and teaching rooms and will be located on a site currently occupied by the 1960s Science Building. The project aims to enhance the dignity of Gilbert Scott’s building and to rationalise a currently congested group of buildings. The Music and Drama Schools, along with the dance space in the PAC building, will create a new ‘hub’ for the performing arts, providing a new centre at the heart of the college which will contribute to the clarity of the school campus as a whole.

Construction will be broken down into two phases to suit the school year and to fit into wider plans for the reorganisation of the campus. The construction of the Music School (Phase 1) will start in June 2013 and complete in July 2014. Dates for the construction for the Drama School (Phase 2) are yet to be defined.

Brighton College Building images / information from Eric Parry Architects

Eric Parry

Location: Brighton College, Sussex, England, UK