SHUNT  THEATRE | London | Unit 21 | 2009

Awarded Distinction for Design & the Fitzroy Robinson Prize for Drawing

“In another moment Alice was through the looking glass, and had Jumped lightly down into the looking glass room.” Lewis Carrol

A new home for Shunt, a London based modern theatre company, who blur the lines between art and performance. The scheme is has a dual program, it consists of two theatre spaces, that exploit ideas to do with the psychological, historical and theatrical aspects of Illusion and perspective. One which I call the ‘Mechanical Theatre’ and the second, the ‘Street Theatre’. The Street Theatre can be accessed for free by all, and should almost be reminiscent of a public park or thoroughfare. Whereas, the Mechanical Theatre is constrained to a more traditional ticketed theatre system. The site, a bomb damaged section of an East End terrace, is dispersed with illusion and distorted perspective to enhance the theatrical poignance of escapism. The scheme heavily engages with some renaissance architectural concepts, yet it is bound by the constraints of a domestic site. The comfortable surroundings of domesticity become something out of the ordinary, which allowed me to exploit even further the social stance of performance and illusion.

Design tutors: Abigail Ashton, Christine Hawley, Andrew Porter
Dissertation Tutor: Stephen Gage