Sitting In The Round
Occupying a former Victorian turning shed for the London and Birmingham Railway Company in Camden, the Roundhouse is one of the most famous and celebrated performing arts venues in London. The venue hosts a huge variety of arts, theatre and music events throughout the year, and is thought by many (including us!) to be the best-looking venue in the capital.
Our relationship with the Roundhouse goes back around 20 years, so we were delighted when they approached us to design and build them a new demountable seating system. The existing system had reached the end of its life and, while waiting for a new custom system to be built, they needed a solution for two large-scale events in 2022, the venue’s own In The Round festival and Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show.
One of the main challenges with the Roundhouse is, as the name suggests, its shape: we had to build around the original Victorian columns, which needed very careful planning and skilled carpentry, because the 14 columns aren’t equally spaced. Not only that, but the solution was needed in weeks, rather than months.
The brief was to follow the shape of the room to make it look as organic as possible, as if the structures were always there. To achieve this, we used our standard decks with custom-made in-fills.
While these was arguably a couple of the trickiest builds we’ve ever undertaken, we were nevertheless able to complete on time, and within budget. The Roundhouse team were delighted with the results.
We look forward to being asked round again very soon.