Design Statement
The Lyric is sited between the characteristic grid pattern of the surrounding Belfast brick streetscape and the serpentine parkland setting of the river Lagan. Our architectural design concept responds to these conditions by housing each the 3 principal functional elements of the building within its own distinctive brick box, with the public circulation spaces and staircases wrapping around the fixed forms of the theatre, studio and rehearsal, standing on the sloping ground of the site like rocks in a stream. The skyline of the building will display the constituent ingredients of the conceptual design. The solid sculpted brick volumes linked by transparent permeable public spaces are intended to visually connect the street through the Lyric woods to the continuous flowing line of the river through the city. All the building materials are selected to endure and will be crafted to weather with age.
The main auditorium houses a 375 seat theatre in a single steep rake, the body of the audience not broken by balconies, the actors in the same room as the audience. Designed to ensure optimum sightlines, the seating layout is creased along one line, folding slightly, like an open hand to hold the audience, focused on the stage but within sight of each other. The faceted acoustic lining is in the shape of three timber arches which enclose the audience. The space has been designed to encourage and intensify the intimacy which was the most successful characteristic of the old theatre. The studio space is a 6 metre high brick ‘empty space’ warehouse performance space. Its flexible layout provides for end stage, traverse, thrust, in the round, cabaret and promenade performance possibilities. The studio has been sited along the street frontage with a picture window to provide visual communication between street and theatre activities.
Brick, timber and stone form the fabric of the internal public spaces and bespoke furniture throughout the building. The public approach up a gently rising sandstone stair from the street and enter a dynamic foyer space leading from the box office to the bar, with a flowing stairway to the upper foyer which overlooks the River and from which both performance spaces are entered. The spiralling circulation pattern empathises the generating force of the performance spaces at the centre of the plan