The expansion and remodeling of the Royal Academy of Music in London, which ended this year has been recently awarded.

Ian Ritchie's architecture team project, the Royal Academy of Music - The Susie Sainsbury Theater and The Angela Burgess Recital Hall, has been awarded the RIBA London Award 2018, RIBA London Building of the Year 2018, as well as the Regional Short List Award and the London West.

The project replaces an auditorium of the 70s and widens the capacity to generate a new space for opera and musical theater, and to include the orchestra in a new large pit. Presents a new warm image of cherry wood, reminiscent of the famous instruments of Stradivarius, at the same time chosen to offer a good reflection and diffusion of sound. The treatment of the facades and the structure has been one of the main conditions because they are included in the protection grades I and II.
 

Description of project by RIBA

This extraordinary intervention fulfils the client's pipe dream for ideal accommodation, within the confines of occupied grade I and II listed buildings. It replaces a 1970s auditorium in the very heart of the Royal Academy of Music, while also adding a new auditorium with a completely different ambience, at roof top level, This project was technically complex: structurally, acoustically and in construction planning. Its resolution has a contemporary feel, that sits very comfortably within its historic setting, much of which is freshly revealed. As a result the Academy has acquired world class performance spaces for both its students' and the public's enjoyment.

The Susie Sainsbury Theatre is a new performance space for Britain's oldest conservatoire. The new theatre, designed for both opera and musical theatre, provides over 300 seats, through the addition of a balcony. This is 40% more than in the auditorium's previous incarnation, and, along with the addition of a large orchestra pit, stage wing and full fly tower miraculously transforms the level of performance and teaching the Academy can provide. The theatre has a warm sensual quality, its faces lined in meticulously detailed faceted cherry wood, into which Liverpool red seats are embedded. The architect explored how wood is transformed and tuned, as well as the role of varnish and pigments in Stradivarius' instruments. The timber lining has been manipulated to provide good sound reflection and diffusion, as well as warmth and light. The client is delighted that the acoustic effect meets the design aspirations and the expert first audience confirmed that it enhances and refines the sound qualities as beautifully as intended. The auditorium lighting, a metaphor for an exploded chandelier and a galaxy, is integral to and complements the dramatic theatricality of the space.

The new 100 seater Angela Burgess Recital Hall, sited at rooftop level, exploits the last major area into which the Academy could expand. The setting, amongst the rooftops of listed buildings, was very sensitive. Clad in Nordic blue pre-patinated copper especially developed for the project, the recital hall visually merges with the new fly tower to create a unified form that fits well into its surroundings and is imperceptible at street level. 

Lined in pale, exquisitely detailed lime washed oak, the recital hall is tranquil, calming and visually cool. An oculus provides a central focus and its expressed construction is intended as a reference to the tension and tuning mechanism of string instruments.

Full disabled access has been provided throughout the building and the alterations complement the historic building, with naturally lit stairs and the previously concealed Grade II listed rear facade revealed. Bricked-up windows have been reinstated allowing natural light to permeate into parts of the building that had been rendered windowless. The building is very well sealed and insulated; and has a highly efficient BMS, with combined heat recovery and air source heat pumps.

This is a very accomplished piece of architecture, which resolves exceptionally complex technical challenges, with elegance, wit and aplomb.

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Architects
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Ian Ritchie Architectes
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Client
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Royal Academy of Music
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Dates
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Completion.- January 2018
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Area
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3,159.00 sqm
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Contractor company
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Geoffrey Osborne Ltd
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Consultants
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Structural Engineers.- WSP
Environmental / M&E Engineers.- Atelier Ten
Acoustic Engineers.- Arup
Quantity Surveyor / Cost Consultant.- Equals
Lighting Design.- Ulrike Brandi Licht
Project Management.- RISE Management Consulting
Access Consultant.- Centre for Accessible Environments
Fire Engineering.- WSP Fire
Theatre Consultant.- Fisher Dachs Associates
Approved Inspector.- AIS
CDM Advisor.- Integrated Designs And Solutions Ltd
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Ian Ritchie, architect for the School of Architecture at John Moores University in Liverpool in 1968. He did Urban Studies for a year in Oita-Osaka, Japan and graduated with a Diploma in Architecture with Distinction from PCL in London (1972).

In 1981 he established his own studio in London, Ian Ritchie Architects (iRAL), and co-founded the design engineering firm Rice Francis Ritchie (RFR) with Peter Rice and Martin Francis in Paris. Previously, he worked as a consultant at Arup in the Lightweight Structures Group of Peter Rice, after having created Chrysalis Architects London with Alan Stanton and Mike Davies. He also collaborated with Peter Rice on the Shelterspan system and taught at the Architectural Association. Ritchie left RFR in 1990 and went on to a series of consulting and teaching functions along with his work at Ian Ritchie Architects, giving regular lectures on topics such as art, urbanism and regeneration in places around the world.

During his career he has been awarded multiple awards, including a CBE in 2000, and was elected a real academic in 1998 and an architecture professor in RA schools in 2004. The firm has received more than 60 national and international nominations and awards. Presented four times for the RIBA Stirling Prize and the Mies Van der Rohe Prize. He was also the first foreign architect to receive the Great Silver Innovation Medal from the Architecture Academy of France.
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Published on: May 17, 2018
Cite: "Royal Academy of Music, renovation by Ian Ritchie Architectes" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/royal-academy-music-renovation-ian-ritchie-architectes> ISSN 1139-6415
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