This project concerns the first purpose-built theatre in Rwanda with its attendant functions. At the behest of the Ishyo Arts Centre (whose director Carole Karemara has longstanding links with Andrew Todd through her collaboration with director Peter Brook) we have designed a general plan for a small campus of buildings and gardens. Comprising a 4-500 seat theatre, music and dance studios, a library and office spaces for the company and community, the project presents itself as a theatre village on a sloping site above the new Kigali wetland park network.

 

The theatre represents a further evolution of our auditoria for Hardelot and Arcangues, with a similar general volume but very different staging possibilities and technical provision. In this case the theatre can propose flat-floor thrust and raised end stage, together with the possibility of in-the-round. The stage opening can vary from 9 to 13 metres and the depth can reach 14m thanks to a mobile upstage wall. An accessible roof terrace is shaded and protected from the rain by a double-layer canopy: glass above and a gossamer light-filtering textile screen below, made by a nationwide collective of artisans. The building envelope is in locally-sourced clay brick and wood, the structural frame is in steel.

 

The library is housed in a vast thatched attic with reading carrels cut into the thick roof; the music and dance studios are below, with a restaurant in the same volume at the plaza level.

 

The offices, backstage and rehearsal spaces are housed in a rectilinear building whose structural frame is in post-tensioned stone, a significant innovation in the Rwandan context where most building materials need to be imported, but granite and basalt are abundant -though rarely used for structural purposes. This approach promises to be a demonstrator for broader application of locally-oriented low-carbon building around the country.

 

The project has five distinct gardens and courts (including one directly behind the stage), developed in association with our regular contributors, landscape architects LIRIO. The team is completed by Charcoalblue (theatre tech and acoustics) and EOC Paris (structure and facades).