Sightline Journal of Theatre Technology and Design The Sage, Gateshead A five-sided notebook: 1996-2001 DanceCity, Newcastle-upon-Tyne An introduction to tension wire grids Corporate Manslaughter Bill Tallescopes in theatres Explosives Regulations Winter 2005 Sightline vol. 28 no. 4 Association of British Theatre CONTENTS Technicians Editorial 6 55 Farringdon Road, The Sage, Gateshead 8 London EC1M 3JB Tel: 020 7242 9200 A five-sided notebook: 1996-2001 18 Fax: 020 7242 9303 DanceCity, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 21 Email: offi[email protected] Website: www.abtt.org.uk “Practically perfect” 23 Registered Charity 282069 Summer surprises 25 What goes around 27 An introduction to tension wire grids 30 Corporate Manslaughter Bill 32 Tallescopes in theatres 34 Letters 35 OFFICERS & COUNCIL Mark White Chairman Explosives Regulations update 37 Brod Mason Vice-Chairman David Adams Hon. Treasurer Members News 39 Robin R Townley Hon. Secretary Bo Barton Neil Bohanna Michael E Hall Chris Harding-Roberts Cover: Hall Two, The Sage, Gateshead. Photo: Nigel Young / Foster and Partners. Andy Hayles Chris Higgs Anne Minors Nikki Scott Editor Geoffrey Joyce EX OFFICIO MEMBERS OF Editorial Board David Adams, Peter Ruthven Hall, COUNCIL Tim Foster, Anne Minors, Jenny Straker David Adams Chairman, Safety Committee Publisher John Offord Entertainment Technology Press Ltd. Chairman, NorthNet – ABTT The Studio, High Green, Great Shelford, Tim Foster Cambridge, Cambs CB2 5EG Chairman, Theatre Planning Committee Tel: 01223 550805 Fax: 01223 550806 Roger Fox Annual Subscription Chairman, Historical Research Committee Sightline is available by annual subscription of £30 (four issues). Cheques should be Peter Maccoy made payable to Entertainment Technology Press Ltd and sent to the Publishers as Chairman, Training & Education Comm. above. Alternatively, please go to www.etnow.com/sightline for an order form. Roger Fox Company Secretary Opinions expressed in Sightline are not necessarily those of the publishers or the David Adams Deputy Company Secretary Association of British Theatre Technicians. All rights are reserved and reproduction of any part in whatever form is prohibited without the prior permission of the ABTT and/ STAFF or the publishers. Information is published in good faith but no responsibility can be Jenny Straker attached to the publishers or to the Association or to any of its members or employees UK_CongoAdministrator Ad_Sightline.qxd 3/11/05 8:17 forAM the Page accuracy 1 or for any liability arising therefrom. ISSN: 0265-9808 Congo, the Avab Board by ETC SIMPLE,INNOVATIVE, INTUITIVEINTUITIVE London, UK Tel +44 (0)20 8896 1000 � Fax +44 (0)20 8896 2000 � www.etcconnect.com 8 Sightline Winter 2005 The Sage, Gateshead The Sage is really In my view, what makes Norman Foster and his office great architects is not their use of three buildings: the materials, which tend to be from a rather large hall, small limited palette, but their ability to surprise hall and rehearsal by making the complex seem simple. This is achieved through a rigorous analysis of room, placed in a the brief and the creation of a highly rational row covered by a organisational diagram for a building, which huge undulating tin suppresses the secondary service spaces and allows the primary spaces to be read with great tent clarity. Stansted Airport by Foster and Partners is one of the best examples of this approach, where the service areas, which make the Music Education Centre, providing studios and building work, are all placed under a podium teaching spaces for an ambitious community and the space above, where passengers arrive music programme. The building is entered and depart, is expressed as an elegant single through the glazed walls at either end and the volume with uninterrupted views from landside foyer acts as a street, leading from one to the to airside (or at least they would be were it other. The result is a building with enormous not for the endless Sockshops and Tie-racks, clarity which, like all good public buildings, is which are now mandatory in a modern airport.) instantly legible and accessible to everyone. The Sage, Gateshead exemplifies the same My only quibble is that the foyers are, if rigorous approach applied to the practice’s anything, too big, which results in a rather first performing arts building. Time has moved subdued atmosphere, like a railway station on of course and whereas at Stansted the after the last train has left. When audiences building envelope was elegantly rectilinear, leave the auditoria during intervals they tend to at the Sage it is curvaceous, made possible stay on the upper galleries around each space, by the advanced three-dimensional computer which are well provided with bars and toilets, modelling which is available to architects and and the main concourse remains curiously engineers today. under-populated. The Sage is really three buildings: the large Externally I think the building is less hall, small hall and rehearsal room, placed in a successful, looking like a giant three-headed row and covered by a huge undulating tin tent. bullfrog squatting on the steeply sloping Each is expressed as a freestanding volume riverbank. It has a rather self-aggrandising with the stairs to the upper levels sitting in presence, which seems to bear no relation the clefts between them and outside them at to the cityscape around it. The stages of all either end. The great roof floats over all three, three-performance spaces are one level above without touching them, supported on slender the main concourse and correspond with the raking masts. At podium level an enormous ground level at the back of the building, where The Sage overlooking the bow fronted foyer space, overlooking the River the loading bays are located. River Tyne Tyne, links all three spaces, below which is the The Sage was originally conceived by Northern Arts and Gateshead Council as a home for the Northern Sinfonia and Folkworks, a respected local organisation specialising in folk, jazz and world music. Only after the building work was underway did the individual users merge to create a single organisation, which now operates the building. The northeast was relatively well served by theatres but had no purpose-built music facilities. This gap in the market has now been filled in spectacular fashion and music lovers in Tyneside must think they are in heaven. The building is run in a refreshingly open way, with all the main spaces open to the public throughout the day. The customer service team are a cheerful band of multi-tasking young people in red tee-shirts, who act as ushers, guides, bar and box office staff, and even technical crew. The musicians of the Northern Sinfonia Sightline Winter 2005 9 are permanent members of staff and also contribute to the music teaching programme. They are all rightly proud of their building. The acoustic designers for the project were Arup Acoustics and their usual rigour has been applied throughout. The large hall is a classical shoe-box concert hall with 1700 seats and the small hall is a flexible galleried space with 450 seats. The management are keen to point out however that there is no classical/non-classical divide and both spaces are programmed with both types of music. As a result both spaces are designed with a variable acoustic, starting with high volumes for unamplified music, which can then be damped down with moving ceilings and motorised banners for amplified music. Background noise levels in both auditoria are claimed to be an amazingly low NR10. To achieve this each section of the building is physically isolated, deep sound lobbies are everywhere, displacement ventilation trickles air in at the bottom of the spaces and all equipment which might make a noise, like galleried courtyard space, here applied to a The concourse has river moving lights, is banned during unamplified flexible music space rather than a theatre. views of the Tyne and concerts. The intention is admirable but comes What distinguishes it from others of the genre Gateshead Millenium Bridges at a considerable cost and one wonders if a is its five-sided geometry. This is most evident slightly less rigorous standard would have at the stage/stalls level where three sides of really been noticeable. It would certainly have audience face two sides of stage. At the two liberated some money for important pieces of upper galleries the geometry is subdivided into equipment, like stage elevators, which had to ten faces, of which seven face the stage, with be cut to stay within budget. warm red timber balcony fronts, and three, with more discreet steel mesh fronts, are behind The large hall (Hall One) is being written about it. Although the space can be used in-the- elsewhere in this issue, so I will confine myself round, a strong directional axis remains and to a few comments about the architecture. it is probably most successful in the end stage As mentioned above, it is classical shoe- format. Flexibility at stalls level is achieved box hall in the manner of proven European relatively simply by two rows of bleachers, models such as the Musikvereinssaal or the which retract under the lowest gallery, with the Concertgebouw. It is kept refreshingly simple, Children rehearsing in the rest of the central seating consisting of chairs concourse for the opening with three levels of balconies at the sides and on the flat floor. The front part of the stage by the Queen rear and few concessions to multi-purpose use. The entire room is lined in blond timber, a departure for the Foster office, with curved plywood balcony fronts and vertically slatted walls. Overhead, large perforated ceiling panels with lighting bars between them can all be driven up and down to vary the acoustic volume.