Brief Encounters: David Brownlow Theatre by Jonathan Tuckey Design
Words by Veronica Simpson
Jonathan Tuckey Design (JTD) has established a strong track record for sensitive interventions and extensions to existing buildings – a skill that has never felt more relevant or important than in our current environmentally and economically-afflicted times. And that desire to ameliorate or enhance what is already there still rings true for the practice’s first stand-alone, new-build structure: a beautiful, bespoke theatre at the heart of a school in Berkshire.
Horris Hill School is tiny: just 130 pupils, aged from four to 13. It’s a private preparatory boys school, for day pupils and boarders, set within private grounds with extensive parkland. Unlike some of its neighbouring private schools – Wellington College, for example – it is not blessed with any impressive architectural frontages. The majority of buildings are unremarkable, functional, low-level red-brick structures accr
Building study: David Brownlow Theatre by Jonathan Tuckey Design
29 January 2021 By Jay Merrick . Photography by Jim Stephenson & Nick Dearden
A studied miscellany of materials and styles add performance spaces and a new civic presence to a prep school near Newbury, writes
Jay Merrick.
The architectural skin and bones of the David Brownlow Theatre at Horris Hill prep school present a conundrum. Everything about the building’s form, elevations and interiors are extremely distinct; and yet, encountered as an object in an 85-acre setting that is part hamlet, part landscape, the building ushers the mind and senses into a pleasing state of puzzlement. Despite the clarity of Jonathan Tuckey Design’s scheme, it’s impossible to give the architecture a cast-iron typological label.
The sustainably designed David Brownlow Theatre provides flexible space both for pupils and the wider local community
Jonathan Tuckey Design has completed a new sustainable theatre building in the grounds of a school in Berkshire, England. The project – which opened to pupils this autumn – has turned what was once a car park into a cultural beacon, both for the school and the wider rural community.
The Horris Hill School is a day and boarding preparatory school for boys aged between 4 and 13, set within a 34ha campus. The theatre, named after its main benefactor Lord David Brownlow, supports and enables theatre performance, production and design. Outside of school hours, it will open up to the wider community through local theatre clubs and groups, providing facilities to sustain such activities at a time when many arts venues are closing across the UK.