Berrys Bay Theatre

The project seeks to incorporate the site’s attributes into its design, where the theatre reimagines the conventional dynamics between audience and performer, offering an immersive experience through the use of its existing meandering path. The architectural approach incorporates a heavy concrete volume surrounded by a light steel framed glass curtain wall. The roof of the theatre is composed of tensile steel cables that hang from a central frame supported by a series of stilts. The project employs robust construction methods alongside elements of transparency to create a theatre that is both resilient yet open to its surroundings.

The tensile cables anchor the theatre to the landscape behind, while seemingly flattening into the water in front.

Structural members rest on or hang from tensile cables, providing a lightweight roofing and upper floor system that is disconnected from the dense concrete volume.

During performances, curtains draw across the existing pathway, creating a temporary separation between the theatre and the public, thus heightening the sense of theatrical immersion.

The existing path that meanders along the water’s edge is a pivotal element in the design, not only as a shared entry, but separates audience from performer, public from private.

The walls and roof are clad in corrugated steel sheeting, complementing the steel-framed curtain wall and reinforcing the idea of a lightweight envelope surrounding a solid concrete core.