Haworth Tompkins designed The Shed as a monolithic red box, entirely clad with rough-sawn timber boards. This material references the board-formed concrete of Denys Lasdun's celebrated 1970s National Theatre and was intended by the architects to appear as its opposite.

Four towering chimneys rise up from the corners, helping to draw air through the structure using a stack-effect system of natural ventilation. These chimneys were also planned as a reference to the architecture of the theatre and they mimic the angular geometry of its riverside facade.

A temporary foyer is created beneath the existing balconies and leads straight through into the 225-seat auditorium.

Reclaimed chairs provide all of the seating inside the building, while recycled materials were used for all of the cladding and surfaces.

"This collaboration has been a wonderful opportunity to explore the ways in which temporary public buildings can alter our perceptions of places and organisations," said practice director Steve Tompkins. "We hope The Shed will be seen as a playful but thoughtful building, both challenging and complementary to the permanent cultural architecture."

Above: photograph is by Philip Vile

The auditorium will remain in place for a year, temporarily replacing the Cottesloe Theatre room while it undergoes a renovation.

Pop-up theatres and cinemas have become increasingly popular in London over the last few years. In 2011 a team of volunteers built a cinema under a motorway flyover, while a theatre for an audience of six travelled around Clerkenwell during last year's design week in the district.

Above: photograph is by Philip Vile

Other temporary theatres created recently include one made from scaffolding and plastic pond liner in southern England and one in Estonia made from straw bales. See more theatres on Dezeen.

See more architecture by Haworth Tompkins, including the new home for print-making and photography at the Royal College of Art.

Photography is by Hélène Binet, apart from where otherwise stated.

Above: photograph is by Philip Vile

Here's some extra information from the architects:

Haworth Tompkins creates temporary venue at the National Theatre ‘The Shed’

Haworth Tompkins announces the completion of The Shed, a temporary venue for the National Theatre on London's South Bank. The Shed will give the NT a third auditorium while the Cottesloe is closed for a year during the NT Future redevelopment, also designed by Haworth Tompkins.

The artistic programme for The Shed, recently announced by the Director of the National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner, pushes creative boundaries, giving the NT the opportunity to explore new ways of making theatre. In the same way, The Shed has been a test bed for experiment by the architectural design team. Conceived by Haworth Tompkins and regular collaborators Charcoalblue, it was then designed and built in little more than a year, a collaborative process between the building designers, the National Theatre, and theatre-makers who will work in the space, in a way that more closely resembled a theatre show than a conventional construction project.

Above: photograph is by Philip Vile

Its temporary nature, building on Haworth Tompkins' earlier temporary projects like the Almeida Theatre at Gainsborough Studios and King's Cross, permits a structure that can be seen less as a building than as an event or arts installation - a vibrant intervention on London's South Bank that will entrance, and sometimes bewilder, passers-by for a period of twelve months.

Above: photograph is by Philip Vile

The Shed occupies Theatre Square, at the front of the National Theatre, beside the river. Its simple form houses a 225-seat auditorium made of raw steel and plywood, while the rough-sawn timber cladding refers to the National Theatre's iconic board-marked concrete, and the modelling of the auditorium and its corner towers complement the bold geometries of the NT itself. A temporary foyer has been carved out from the space beneath the NT's external terraces and provides easy connection to the existing foyers. The Shed's brilliant red colour covering the entire mass of a form without doors or windows, announces its arrival boldly against the concrete bulk of the NT, giving it a startling and enigmatic presence.

Above: photograph is by Philip Vile

The Shed also represents another step in Haworth Tompkins' ongoing project to research sustainable ways of making theatres. Built of materials that can be 100% recycled and fitted out with re-used seating, The Shed is naturally ventilated, with the four towers that draw air through the building providing its distinctive form.

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by Haworth Tompkins appeared first on Dezeen.

William Lim of local architects CL3 designed the temporary structure in the same style as traditional bamboo theatres built since the 1950s.

Orange nylon sheets are stretched over the tiered roof to imitate the ancient palaces of Beijing's Forbidden City, while colourful fabric signs mounted on bamboo scaffolding face out onto the street.

Red chairs, curtains and lanterns adorn the interior, while more lanterns and flags are hung up outside in red and gold, as both colours are considered lucky in Hong Kong and China.

For three weeks the West Kowloon Bamboo Theatre will occupy the site earmarked for the new Xiqu Chinese Opera Centre, which is being designed by Vancouver firm Bing Thom Architects and Hong Kong studio Ronald Lu & Partners Company Ltd, and is due to complete in 2017.

Foster + Partners won a competition to masterplan the West Kowloon Cultural District in 2010, beating designs by OMA and Rocco Design Architects. Herzog & de Meuron, SANAA and Renzo Piano are among the teams shortlisted to design a new visual culture museum for the area and Aric Chen has been appointed to curate it.

See all our stories about the West Kowloon Cultural District »
See all our stories about architecture and design in Hong Kong »

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by William Lim appeared first on Dezeen.

Bringing together two existing organisations, the Małopolska Garden of Arts (MGA) contains both the Małopolska Voivodeship Library and the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre that had been already been using the old building as a venue for workshops.

Architects Krzysztof Ingarden and Jacek Ewý extended the building to create a T-shaped plan, surrounded by a glass curtain wall with a cloak of chunky clay louvres.

This stripy cladding was designed with an uneven profile to mirror the shapes of surrounding buildings. Ingarden describes this as a game between "mimesis and the abstraction", meaning that the building both refers to its context and is distinctly different from it.

The library occupies the western wing of the T-shaped plan, while the theatre stretches north to south, beside a large indoor garden filled with benches, planting beds and a maple tree.

Partially sheltered beneath a skeletal roof, this space is open to the public and was designed to "transport the gateway to the stage out onto the street" and hence entice visitors into the theatre, cinema, events room and cafe.

The library has its own entrance and contains three floors of reading rooms and study areas that face out onto a pedestrian passageway along the side of the building.

Ingarden & Ewý won a competion to design the Małopolska Garden of Arts back in 2005 and it finally opened to the public last month.

It was also recently awarded the Janusz Bogdanowski Award for making the greatest contribution to architecture in Kraków in 2012.

See more projects in Poland, including the world’s narrowest house and a sports centre with rooftop tennis courts.

Photography is by Krzysztof Ingarden.

Here's more information from Ingarden & Ewy

The building of the Małopolska Garden of Arts (MGA) has been constructed according to a competition-winning (Union of Polish Architects, SARP 2005) design by Ingarden & Ewy Architects. The initiative of establishing a new cultural institution in Kraków was proposed a year earlier by Krzysztof Orzechowski, Director of the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre and Janusz Sepioł, at the time the Marshal of the Małopolska Region. It is no coincidence that the building was raised in the vicinity of ul. Karmelicka – a street popular with students and locals alike – opposite the building of the public library, with the aim of ensuring its smooth inclusion into the “bloodstream” of the city.

The building of MGA introduced new spatial order to the old backyards and ruined buildings in Rajska and Szujskiego streets in Krakow. The starting point was a multifunctional hall, which was entered into the outline of the old, 19th-century horse-riding arena, used in the last years of its history as workshops and storage space for the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków.

The Małopolska Garden of Arts is a cross between two institutions: the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre and the Malopolska Voivodeship Library. The wing on Szujskiego Street holds a modern art and media library, with multimedia books and music, while the section standing on ul. Rajska has been developed by the theatre, and is equipped with a multifunctional events hall. The new hall – operating, as a studio theatre, conference room, concert hall, and venue for banquets and exhibitions – holds retractable stages for 300 people. State-of-the-art stage technology is present overhead: fixed on hoists and cranes to the steel ceiling girders. This allows dramas and concerts to be performed, and exhibitions, film screenings, symposiums, conferences, art auctions, fashion shows, and many more events to be held. Altogether, the space of about 4300 sq.m houses a theatre together with a cosy cinema with 98 seats, a café, and premises for the organisation of educational, art-related activities.

Honing the form, the architects focused on interaction with the future recipients, which is why the entire spatial form of the symbolic, openwork roofing raised over the garden from the side of Rajska Street – though not functioning as an actual roof – is there to transport the gateway to the stage out onto the street. In this way, the building delicately nudges passers-by with the skilful manipulation of the form, already at first glance giving the onlooker the impression of going beyond the borders of a garden, where culture is grown in evenly planted rows. Further proof of the sophisticated play with the space is the garden itself. Imitating flower beds, the equal bands with low greens are a metaphor of a garden: as much as the architects could afford here. A notable fact is that historically “ulica Rajska” – literally “Paradise Street” – led to the Garden of Paradise, which was later replaced by the developments of the Tobacco Works.

Architect Krzysztof Ingarden (collaborating with Jacek Ewý), claims that the form of the building is a contextual game between “mimesis and the abstraction”. In practice, this means that the building is by no means a simulacrum of the context, but rather draws inspiration from the code of contextual forms by making references to the geometry of the roofs and tissue of the neighbouring structures applied for the abstract geometrical compositions of the façades. The building fits the scale of its environment perfectly by maintaining the lines of the roof and divisions of the façades in line with the composition and linear solutions of the neighbouring buildings.

The final impact is the result of the designers’ sensitivity to signals coming from the environment. For example, the opening in the perforated roof of the garden was formed, especially for the maple tree that grows there. In recognition of its exquisite sense of spatial composition and creative form in historical context, the building was awarded with the Professor Janusz Bogdanowski Prize, for the best architectural achievement in Krakow in the year 2012.

In this place, the cultural life of the Kraków’s young artistic set will blossom under a shared roof. Modern ballet, contemporary theatre forms, audio and video arts, concerts, and all and any other artistic pursuits will find their home here.

Above: computer rendering

Above: basement plan

Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: section A-A - click above for larger image

Above: section B-B - click above for larger image

Above: section C-C - click above for larger image

Above: section D-D - click above for larger image

Above: section E-E - click above for larger image

Above: west elevation - click above for larger image

Above: south elevation - click above for larger image

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by Ingarden & Ewý appeared first on Dezeen.

Named Khor I, the wooden pavilion is constructed from slim timber batons arranged vertically to form overlapping pyramid shapes which vary on each side.

The structure was inspired by a walk through a bamboo forest, explained architect Breg Horemans. "The vertical wooden elements define the space without closing it off. This creates an intimacy that opens itself to the public and embraces the public at the same time," he said.

The theatre is designed for a play that can be performed without any guidance. Visitors are invited to read the script from the rotating cubes as they circulate, echoing the way Buddhist worshippers spin wooden prayer wheels as they move around a temple.

The pavilion was designed for Floriade, the World Horticultural Expo in Venlo. TAAT, which stands for Theatre as Architecture, Architecture as Theatre, is a newly founded company comprising Horemans and theatre practitioner Gert-Jan Stam.

We've featured a number of temporary theatres recently, including a tiny mobile performance space topped with red coal scuttles and a venue made from sheets of pond liner and scaffolding.

See all stories about pavilions »
See all stories about theatres »

Photographs are by Sina Maleki.

Here's some more information about the theatre:

Khor I by TAAT - a do-it-yourself theatre pavilion exhibited at Floriade, World Horticultural Expo 2012, Venlo, The Netherlands.

In Khor I, the specific challenge is to perform a play without any guidance or introduction. The dramatic situation is simply available and can be ‘filled-in’ and approached freely. Four people read the script out loud every time, without any support or supervision.”

The installation is about movement and meditation. The script, written by Gert-Jan Stam, is incorporated in an installation based on the mechanism of Buddhist “prayer wheels”. In order to read the text, the participants move from one wheel to the next thus performing a slow circle dance around the installation. The experience bears a mantra-like quality: the participants immerse themselves in the performance, momentarily losing any sense of time and space.

Khor I could be considered a theatre-installation. With its monumental quality, it represents a common ground between theatre, architecture and the visual arts. The pavilion, designed by Breg Horemans, is as much an essential part of the installation as is the script. It provides a setting for the play that is both intimate and in touch with the surroundings. Architectural elements are used to introduce the visitors to the play they are about to perform.

The project was initiated by Huis van Bourgondïe in Maastricht, The Netherlands. TAAT (Theatre as Architecture, Architecture as Theatre) was founded in 2012 to support, develop and facilitate the concept and construction of HALL33, KHOR II, ATAT and other theatre-as-architecture/architecture-as-theatre productions.

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by TAAT appeared first on Dezeen.

Above image is by Pan Weijun

Wuxi Grand Theatre is situated on a manmade peninsula on Taihu Lake.

Above image is by Kari Palsila

The perforated aluminium panels on the roof are lit up by thousands of colour-changing LEDs.

Glowing columns are dotted around the main entrance square and continue inside the building where they support the roof of the central lobby.

The main auditorium is covered with 15,000 solid bamboo blocks designed to enhance the acoustics of the space.

Above image is by Kari Palsila

Around 20,000 custom-made glass bricks cover the curved wall of the auditorium in the lobby area overlooking the lake. "Finnish nature, lakes and ice" were the inspiration behind this part of the building, say the architects.

Above image is by Kari Palsila

The theatre has been shortlisted for an award at this year’s World Architecture Festival, which takes place from 3-5 October. The full shortlist is available to read on Dezeen.

See all our stories about theatres »
See all our stories about China »

Above image is by Kari Palsila

Photographs are by Jussi Tiainen except where otherwise stated.

Here's some more information from the architects:

Wuxi Grand Theatre

In 2008, PES-Architects won the first prize in the invited international architectural competition for Wuxi Grand Theatre. The other competitors were established and well-known practices from Germany, France, Japan and Denmark. The main idea of Wuxi Grand Theatre is based on its location. The manmade peninsula on the northern shore area of Taihu Lake and the highway bridge nearby make this location comparable to that of Sydney Opera House.

Due to this location the building is an impressive landmark, rising up to a total height of 50 meters like a big sculpture from the terraced base. Its eight gigantic roof wings stretch far over the facades, giving the building a character of a butterfly, while protecting the building from the heat of the sun. The architectural concept is unique: inside the steel wings are thousands of LED lights, which make it possible to change the colour of the wings according to the character of the performances. This is possible, because the underside of the wings is covered by perforated aluminium panels.

Another special feature is the “forest” of 50 light columns, each 9 metres high, which start from the main entrance square, support the roof of the central lobby and continue outside of the lakeside entrance into the lake. There is a strong Chinese feature that runs throughout the whole building: the large scale use of bamboo which is both a traditional and a modern Chinese material.

Above image is by Martin Lukascyzk

Recently new methods for the production and use of bamboo have made it possible to cover the Main Opera Auditorium with over 15,000 solid bamboo blocks, all individually shaped according to acoustic needs and architectural image. There is also a material with a Finnish character: almost 20,000 specially designed glass bricks cover the curved wall of the opera auditorium in the lakeside lobby. Finnish nature, lakes and ice were the architectural inspiration.

Architecture and interior design: PES-Architects
Project: Wuxi Grand Theatre
Address: to the North of Jinshi Road, North bank of Lake Li, Taihu New City, Wuxi, P.R.China
Client: Office for the Important Urban Projects in Wuxi /Fan Chun Yu, Zhou Jian
User: Wuxi Culture and Art Administration Center
Floor area: 78 000 m2
Year of completion: 2012
Start of design: 2008
Competition: June 2008

Plan – click above for larger image

Architects:

Competition, 2 phases:
PES-Architects: Pekka Salminen and Tuomas Silvennoinen (main designers), Tristan Hughes, Jouni Rekola, Michael Bossert, Heikki Riitahuhta, Tomi Laine, Miguel Pereira, Emanuel Lopez, Elina Modeen, LaiLinLi, Fang Hai
UDG: Sun LiYang, Gu ZhiPeng, Guan XiaoJing

SD-, DD- and CD-phases:
PES-Architects: Pekka Salminen (project leader and chief designer), Martin Lukasczyk (project architect/ project manager), Elina Modeen (project manager China), LaiLinLi (project manager China), Fang Hai, Julia Hertell, Tristan Hughes, Vesa Hinkola, Willem-Anne van Bolderen, Miguel Pereira, Nicholas Capone, Marcelo Diez, Jani Koivula, Heikki Riitahuhta, Tomi Laine, Yang Yue
UDG: Zhang Min, Guan XiaoJing, Teng Xu

Main auditorium section – click above for larger image

Interior design: PES-Architects: Pekka Salminen, Martin Lukasczyk, Kai Lindvall, Satu Ristola

Landscape design Finland: Maisemasuunnittelu Hemgård: Gretel Hemgård, Vilja Larjosto
Landscape design China: Feiscape, Shanghai
Structural design Finland: Vahanen Group: Matti Haaramo
Structural design China: Shanghai Institute for Architectural Design and Research SIADR, Shanghai

HVAC design Finland: Climaconsult: Harri Ripatti
HVAC design China: SIADR, Shanghai
Lighting design Finland: Valoa Design: Roope Siiroinen, Marko Kuusisto
Lighting design China: Enjoy, Shanghai

Acoustic design Finland: Akukon & Kahle Acoustics: Henrik Möller, Ekhard Kahle, Thomas Wulfrank
Acoustic design China: Zhang Kuiseng, Shanghai
Stage design Finland: Akukon: Henrik Möller , Janne Auvinen
Stage design China: SBS, Beijing

Section – click above for larger image

Other participants:

Bamboo: Yrjö Kukkapuro, Fang Hai
Space programme: Finnish National Opera/ Timo Tuovila
Special glass bricks: Tapio Yli-Viikari and Kirsti Taiviola (Aalto University), Niu Fanzheng, Lu Ye
Glass column consulting: Glaston: Pekka Nieminen

Local partners:

Shanghai Institute of Architectural Design and Research Co. SIADR (DD and CD phases)
Gold Mantis, Suzhou (interior design DD and CD phases)
United Design Group Co.Ltd. UDG, Shanghai (competition phase and SD phase)

Material suppliers:

Bamboo interiors: Dasso Co, Hangzhou
Roof material: Rheinzink Co, Shanghai
Glass elevations: Pilkingtong Co, Shanghai
Glass Bricks: SIP Pengli Visual Mastermind & Design Co. Ltd.

Elevation – click above for larger image

Contractors:

Construction administration & client: Office for the Important Urban Projects in Wuxi/ Fan Chun Yu, Zhou Jian
Construction supervision: Zhejiang Tiangnan Project Management Co. Ltd
Main construction company: China Construction 3rd Engineering Bureau/ CSCEC
Steel structure construction: Jiangsu Huning Steel Mechanism Co. Ltd
MEP: China Construction Industrial Equipment Installation Co. Ltd
Stage machinery: SBS Bühnentechnik GmbH/ SBS Stage Equipment Technology (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd
Stage machinery supervision: ENFI
Acoustics: Huisitong Acoustic Technology Enineering Co. Ltd
Stage lighting: Hangzhou EKO Light
Facades: Wuxi Jingcheng Curtain Wall Engineering Co. Ltd
Interior construction: Gold Mantis, Decoration Co. Ltd. of China Construction 3rd Engineering Bureau, JiangSu XinHuaDong Construction Decoration Engineering Co. Ltd, Hua Ding Construction Decoration Engineering Co. Ltd
Landscape construction: Shanghai Landscape Construction & Design Co. Ltd, Yixing Hydo-Engineering Co. Ltd
Building automation: ZheDa Innovation Technology Co. Ltd

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by PES-Architects appeared first on Dezeen.