As architects, landscape architects and urban designers, we create award winning buildings, living landscapes and thriving urban spaces, using inventive design to solve real life challenges. Each of our projects is different but the driving force behind every one is the desire to create something that is inherently beautiful, sustainable and useful.
Our vast experience in the design of arts and cultural buildings, from museums and galleries to theatres and concert halls, has been recognised through repeat business and numerous awards.
As well as designing new buildings, we are well versed in the sensitive restoration and refurbishment of listed buildings for arts use. We have significant expertise of working in heritage contexts and always strike a balance between respecting architectural heritage whilst meeting modern day quality and accessibility standards.
These spaces provide an opportunity to play a key role in fostering sustainable communities and become meaningful anchors in a city’s cultural infrastructure. Good design – people-centred, unintimidating and enjoyable – can engage visitors and help attract a wider, more diverse audience.
From our design studios in London and Manchester, our urban designers, landscape architects and interior designers also enable us to look holistically at all projects, providing the expertise to deal with the macro scale masterplanning and micro scale detailing, both inside and outside the buildings.
Bristol Beacon, Phase 1
Bristol
Bristol City Council
The transformation of Bristol Beacon will see the venue become Bristol’s musical hub, with modern facilities fit for 2,500 people. The first phase of this large, complex project, delivered a new foyer building, featuring an open informal performance space at its centre and a range of other flexible spaces to support education, outreach and conference programmes. The building is designed to have an independent architectural identity, expressing the desire to provide Bristol’s public with an entirely new concert-going experience.
“The transformation will touch tens of thousands of lives. Our audiences and the children that we educate will benefit immensely from the new facilities. We’ll also boost the Bristol economy by tens of millions of pounds each year.”
Louise Mitchell, Chief Executive, Bristol Beacon
The second and final phase of a project that promotes Bristol Beacon as an exemplar of international quality within the music industry. The original fabric of the Grade II listed building has been repaired, restored and upgraded, conserving the Byzantine Victorian architecture whilst adapting it for modern audiences and operations. The project’s programmatic needs were extensive, including: the renewal of existing music performance halls and backstage areas; the remodelling of secondary spaces, such as the underused cellars, to introduce new music education studios and club-style third venue; and the insertion of new AV, stage engineering and upgraded building services.
Bristol
Phase
“Bristol now enjoys an unrivalled combination of inspiring spaces for music together with inclusive, welcoming and beautiful public areas. I am delighted with every element of the new facilities, designed with a true understanding of our needs and built to inspire generations of Bristolians.”
Louise Mitchell, Chief Executive, Bristol Beacon
Devonshire Park
Eastbourne
Eastbourne Borough Council
Dating from 1873, Devonshire Park has long been an attraction for the south coast. However, the facilities are in need of significant revitalisation and so we were appointed to carefully restore the listed theatres; enhance the tennis facilities and provide a new conference building. Throughout, we are preserving the heritage of the three theatres whilst creating modern venues and facilities. The key design driver is to transform the audience experience by improving comfort, accessibility and production quality.
“This is an extremely exciting project that will bring more people to Eastbourne, provide even better facilities for residents and support the sustainability of the park for future generations.”
Councillor David Tutt, Leader of Eastbourne Borough Council
“The development of Devonshire Park is a wonderful project for us that unusually combines our skills in masterplanning, landscape design and work with listed and new buildings in a heritage context.”
Mark Lewis, Associate Director
The new music school at King’s School, Bruton, sits on the site of a former open-air swimming pool, amongst a collection of listed buildings dating from the 16th Century. Facilities include a recital hall, peripatetic rooms, practice rooms, music classrooms and a recording studio.
A carefully crafted ‘box of tricks’, the design has been driven by the constrained but inspiring site and an ambitious client brief. Situated within a rich landscape of historic structures, the setting demanded an architecturally sympathetic response, whilst delivering the complex technical and acoustic requirements of a music school.
“Since the idea of a new music school was first discussed, I hoped the building would transform both our music facilities and an unappealing brownfield site at the centre of our historic campus. The final building is even better than I hoped for… The design, use of light and space as well as the acoustic engineering are all of the highest quality.”
Ian Wilmshurst, Headmaster, King’s School
The Queen Elizabeth Music School
Somerset King’s School, Bruton
Swindon’s Cultural Quarter
Swindon
Swindon Borough Council
Our masterplan provides a design framework for delivery of new cultural facilities in response to the needs and aspirations of Swindon’s cultural organisations, participants and audiences. Our plan transforms a neglected part of town into a new arts district organised around high quality public spaces. We worked with the Council and its partner arts organisations to develop proposals for an inclusive arts offer to meet local needs and attract audiences from further afield.
Long-term all-round sustainability underpins the emerging concepts, from financial resilience, environmental and societal perspectives, making this the UK’s first net zero carbon cultural quarter.
“Delivering a 1,200-capacity theatre to replace the Wyvern, a new media and arts production centre, new dance studio and art gallery will provide a huge economic boost, and reinforce our long-term plan to improve our town centre.”
Councillor Dale Heenan, Swindon Borough Council
Our concept for this immersive theatre-in-the-round features a lightweight structure boldly inhabiting the space, its modernity in stark contrast to the traditional splendour of the Edwardian hall. The seven-sided construction spans between existing columns to avoid loading the floor and an odd number of facets ensures that members of the audience do not directly face each other. The original design was completed in 1976, and 20 years later, following the 1996 IRA bomb, we were invited back to restore the hall and make further adjustments to the theatre itself.
“The atmosphere is breathtaking as one enters that huge foyer space of the old nineteenth century Royal Exchange to see, suspended from the four monumental columns supporting the central dome of the building, this lunar space module-like structure of steel and glass that is the theatre itself.”
Richard Negri, RET Director
Royal Exchange
Theatre
Manchester
Royal Exchange Theatre Co.
“An achievement which must be rated as one of the greatest advances in theatrical architecture of all time.”
Sheridan Morley, Punch magazine
“It’s not often that artists get an opportunity to realise a contribution in such a tangible way and this aspect has been of lasting significance to me.”
Tania Kovats, Artist
Ikon Gallery
Birmingham
Ikon Gallery and Brindleyplace plc
We were commissioned to restore, stabilise and repair the Grade II listed former Oozells Street School, converting it into a new home for the nascent Ikon Gallery. Our collaboration with artist Tania Kovats led to the building sitting on a slate plinth – making the gallery itself a work of art within the environment. Externally, we restored the building back to its former gothic glory and added a new glazed extension. Inside, the old classrooms were replaced with galleries that needed to be as flexible as possible to accommodate a range of artists and exhibits.
Enjoying a prominent position above the town of Monmouth in south Wales, this boarding school for girls is on a challenging steep site which includes a Grade II listed main school building.
A new three storey performing arts centre replaces an old gymnasium and links directly to the school’s existing main theatre building to provide a centrally located, combined facility for music, drama and dance. Key spaces include an entrance foyer which can be expanded for performance gatherings, a series of peripatetic, group practice and soundproof rooms, a technical studio, music classrooms, a library and new recital hall seating 200 people.
Our challenge here was to restore the dilapidated Grade I listed church and create a visually and acoustically stunning space for the London Symphony Orchestra. Externally, we focused on restoration, only adding a new roof and artists’ entrance on the site of the old vestry. Within, an entirely new interior was constructed. The volume of the church forms the main rehearsal, education and performance space. Below, the previously unsafe crypt was rebuilt to house a café, and extensions were excavated under the churchyard to create space for practice rooms, offices, plant and visitor facilities.
“Levitt Bernstein produced excellent results as architect and contract manager on our project. They led the project with great skill and imagination. They are very knowledgeable and their expertise was of great value to delivering an extremely challenging project.”
Ian Martin, Chair, St Luke Centre Management Company Limited
LSO St Luke’s
Islington, London
The St Luke Centre Management Company
“St Luke’s now has a near perfect acoustic for chamber music: warm and supportive, yet also beautifully clear.” Richard Morrison, The Times
Victoria Gallery and Museum
Liverpool
University of Liverpool
The refurbishment of this underused university building has created valuable space for the Educational Opportunities Department and a number of historical collections. Our starting point was to make the most of Waterhouse’s stunning interiors, which through careful restoration are now visible to the wider public for the first time. A series of sensitive interventions have also ensured the building is more accessible. Externally, the only ailing element was the impressive clock tower, which was fully restored to establish the Victoria Building as a Liverpool landmark once more.
“This project has transformed a private university building into one that can be enjoyed by all, whether school children involved in activities planned by Educational Opportunities, or people visiting the museum’s collections, the café, shop, lecture theatre or the magnificent building itself.”
Rachel James, Consultant
The Atkinson
Southport
Sefton Council
This project combines three Grade II listed Victorian buildings on Southport’s handsome main street to form an integrated cultural centre, which includes performing arts, an art gallery, museum and library. The fine 19th Century gallery spaces have been upgraded to GIS standards to house touring exhibitions, and the centre’s two auditoria will now accommodate festival style events. The library has been expanded to include an internet cafe, music listening zones and a new local studies suite that complements the museum, visual and performing arts attractions.
Built in 1819 and Grade I listed, this is the sole remaining working theatre from the Regency period in the UK. The project restores the auditorium, introducing original features and a decorative scheme based on extensive, detailed research. Improvements, including comfort cooling, are incorporated in a manner consistent with its role as a public service theatre, hosting a variety of medium sized productions. Finally, a new foyer extension on an adjoining garden gently touches the existing building – its shallow curved roof responding to the geometry of the theatre’s plan.
“We were delighted with the work that Levitt Bernstein carried out for us. They always went the extra mile and were businesslike in their dealings and scrupulous in their explanation of a field distant from our own experience.”
Colin Blumenau, Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds
Theatre Royal
Bury St. Edmunds
Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds
Stratford Circus
Performing Arts Centre
Newham, London
London Borough of Newham
Combining a 300-seat courtyard style theatre, 100-seat studio space, medium scale dance studio, meeting rooms and a café, Stratford Circus is the centrepiece of the culture-led regeneration of Stratford town centre. The principal performance space is highly adaptable and incorporates retractable seating, variable proscenium and a tension wire grid. Stratford Circus is run by New Vic, a centre of vocational excellence, providing training for industry professionals, and is also the base for four resident arts organisations.
This competition-winning commission transformed this Grade II listed building into a 750-seat concert hall and multi-purpose public building. The scheme enables the performance space to convert rapidly from a fully seated to flat floor layout, and the acoustics can be varied to suit different requirements. A new ‘over-roof’ structure, supported by external columns, provides space for services and additional acoustic volume and retractable absorption panels. The design also allows for the future addition of a 200-seat and 500-seat auditoria for dance and drama.
Corn Exchange
King’s Lynn
Leisure & Tourism Department, Borough of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk
