Hertford’s bold new cultural hub ‘BEAM’ opens!
09/09/24
The new BEAM multi-purpose arts and culture venue presenting live performance and film, alongside an all-day café/bar and events spaces for community use, is open! Located alongside the River Lea in the historic town centre of Hertford, BEAM has been designed by Bennetts Associates to be a cultural beacon for the town and the wider communities of Hertfordshire and beyond.
The project grew out of East Herts District Council’s recognition that culture is a vital contributor to the future prosperity and wellbeing of local people. A £30m investment by the Council led to the transformation and extension of the former Hertford Theatre to create a building with a far greater range of facilities including a 547-seat theatre and three cinema screens, as well as a second theatre space coming in 2025.
Photograph taken by Hufton + Crow
Photograph taken by Hufton + Crow
Photograph taken by Hufton + Crow
The design incorporates the shell of the old theatre and its stage and backstage areas, but adds significant new spaces for the cinemas, studio, and café/bar spaces in a series of brick-clad volumes. These new spaces enclose a covered triangular courtyard space, which forms the main foyer. The main theatre was transformed from a 400-seat flat-floor room with a large retractable seating unit, into a 547-seat auditorium with a shallow-raked stalls, a balcony and a fully accessible technical grid.
Placing such a large building on a tight riverside site in the centre of a historic town presented a significant challenge for the architects and contractor GPF Lewis. Bennetts Associates devised a design approach which broke down the building into a collection of individual forms, each of a scale more appropriate to context. Angled facades hug the site boundary whilst pitched roofs allow each element to be read individually, with the true scale of the building never apparent. The hexagonal plan form of the old theatre and its shapely zinc-clad flytower anchor the composition.
Photograph taken by Hufton + Crow
The facades are uniformly clad in a locally produced brick which was selected to tone in with the colour of historic buildings in the immediate context. The blank areas of façade enclosing the cinemas and performance spaces are enlivened with textured and glazed brick patterning, and full-height ground-floor window openings provide views into the public spaces within.
Bennetts Associates introduced Citizens Design Bureau to the project as interior designers. The like-minded practices both have extensive experience in theatre and arts buildings, and the project resulted in a fruitful collaboration.
Photograph taken by Hufton + Crow
Citizens Design Bureau envisaged the front of house areas as a series of volumes defined by layers of colour, with the bright green of trees visible through large foyer windows, an integral part of the palette. Simple materials: wooden floors, exposed brick and painted plaster concrete are transformed within each space with wall, ceiling, upholstery and lighting colours that bring a distinctive and atmospheric intimacy to each room and even extend to the toilets. The practice took great care in the design of room acoustics with the introduction of distinctive concertina felt absorption panels on the ceiling. The main auditorium, which has been completely remodelled, retains nods to the mid-century style of the original space - with retro ventilation grilles and structure supporting new technical galleries subtly concealed by a new layer of faceted, dark stained panelling.
The design seeks to reduce embodied carbon and was the subject of a whole-building carbon assessment during the design stage. Aside from elements of re-used structure from the old theatre, the building makes extensive use of mass timber in the superstructure, with pre-fabricated cross-laminated timber panels forming the main walls and pitched roofs of the new cinemas and second theatre space.
Photograph taken by Hufton + Crow
Christian Wallace, Senior Consultant and Charcoalblue Team Leader on BEAM, said of the project: “We’re delighted to have worked on this fantastic, building with our long term collaborators Bennetts Associates that brings together sustainable methods, cutting edge technology and modern day theatrical designs. This building now houses an intimate 550-seat theatre and 3 technically advanced cinemas with an additional theatre space opening next year. BEAM will be a shining beacon celebrating creativity for the local community and East Hertfordshire. Where possible we reused or adapted materials from the original theatre; the flying system of the theatre uses a combination of new and refurbished equipment, the lighting bridges over the auditorium are interwoven with the original steel trusses and the orchestra pit lift frame has also been reused. Alongside this we have integrated new technologies; digital laser cinema projectors in each space, enhanced assisted listening across all venues and state of the art technical infrastructures culminate in a creating a vibrant and accessible building for all to use.”
Byron Harrison, Partner and Charcoalblue Acoustics Lead on BEAM, said also: "We have embraced the reuse of building fabric and low embodied carbon structures in the design of BEAM. These environmental objectives have inspired new acoustic approaches and construction details that still allow concurrent activities in this hard-working, community-focused arts building."
The full upfront carbon breakdown for the project is available here
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