School Drama Classroom design and refurbishment.
The second of two projects for Ursuline Prep School completed at the end of December with a purpose-designed school drama classroom refurbishment with performance space being handed over. The original single story building built in 2013 had a very low ceiling height with sliding room divider doors that wasn’t set up for anything much beyond traditional classroom uses. Fusion designed the new Drama Classroom space and carried out the refurb.
Drama Classroom Design
The new space has benefitted from some major works to raise the ceiling height. Structural design by Fusion and our consulting engineers devised a solution to raise the height of the roof trusses using cranked steel beams and a new timber joist installation with supporting steel flitch beams. The difference in room volume is immediately noticable and gives headroom for the new raised, tiered, seating platforms. Sight lines for the audience will be greatly improved and the whole space feels purpose built without the associated cost of a new-build theatre.
Images showing works to raise the drama classroom ceiling level.
New roof steelwork and joists to raise the ceiling height.
Fitting out the School Drama Room for Theatre use.
Lighting design in the new drama classroom makes the most of a limited budget. Cost effective stage spot lights are augmented by colour-changing LED panels to give a wide variety of effects and scene setting. House lighting is provided by perimeter LED downlighters on a dimmer control, and everyday lighting uses an LED batten which gives sufficient spread and intensity to light the whole space when the room is used for daily classes. A detachable lighting controller and sound mixing controller plug into Speakon connections on wall sockets. Ceiling mounted mic sockets allow microphones to be set for performances or detached. Everything has been designed to make this a multi purpose classroom setup.
A full wraparound curtain backdrop gives plenty of scope to position curtains where needed or to create a full 360 degree backdrop. The drama classroom has been half carpeted to define the performance space leaving the tiered seating area in the original vinyl floor. New air conditioning units have been added at the two ends of the space to cool the room when the maximum 6 rows of 9 in the audience and children are all in the room together.
Some of the original teaching hardware has been retained. A projector and whiteboard linked to a standalone computer are still in situ at the front of the classroom. The large open classroom space can work in a traditional classroom layout focusing on the whiteboard and projector, or work perfectly as an open classroom layout.
Integrated Theatre Technology
On a limited budget the school drama space has been fitted out with lighting and sound hardware to give the performances a wide range of capabilities. Mic sockets are fitted in the ceiling and wired through to the sound mixing desk that can also be augmented with floor standing or radio mics. Stereo speakers are set into the ceiling above the audience. Lighting controls are fed back to the DMX controller. This gives a host of lighting effects as well as simpler fade controls for the RGB colour-change panels. Perimeter lighting is set on a dimmer to give control of ‘house’ lighting. Stage spots are also controlled from the DMX box. The system is sophisticated enough to give performance control but easy to use for simple workshop and daytime situations.
Pictures of the space before refurb show the low ceiling height as well as original sliding folding doors that divided the room in half, which were never used.
A simple, cost effective, tiered seating platform system gives the drama classroom the capability to be one large drama classroom or a theatre style layout. The platforms are light and stack onto trollies, and the 3 tiers plus the floor level allow for 6 rows of audience seating.
The most challenging part of the project was the initial structural and engineering design. The wide, shallow, roof trusses presented quite a difficult proposition to enable the ceiling height to be lifted. Once steelworks were designed and installed the new ceiling was constructed relatively quickly and subsequent refurb works sailed along. The integrated design of the space has created a facility that is practical with dual use where all the theatre elements are incorporated without compromise to the everyday use of the room.
If you’re considering a drama classroom refurb or upgrading a hall to become a fully fledged performance space get in touch with Fusion Classroom Design and we’ll happily discuss plans and designs. Click here to see the refurbished ICT suite at Ursuline Prep School completed in the summer holiday. Or see our Case Studies page.