BEAM

Location: Hertford

Brick Manufacturer: HG Matthews

Brick Name: Machine Made Dark Multi Blend

Architect: Bennetts Associates

Brickwork Contractor: Signature Brickwork

BEAM is a multi-purpose arts and culture venue presenting live performance and film, alongside an all-day café/bar and events spaces for community use, located alongside the River Lea in the historic town centre of Hertford, designed by Bennetts Associates.

The project transforms and extends of the former Hertford Theatre to create a building with a far greater range of facilities including a 547-seat theatre and three cinema screens, as well as a second studio theatre and community rooms for hire. The design incorporates the shell of the old theatre and its stage and backstage areas, but adds significant new spaces for the cinemas, studio, and café/bar spaces in a series of brick-clad volumes. These new spaces enclose a covered triangular courtyard space, which forms the main foyer, also clad in the same brick as the exterior to accentuate the solidity of the volumes and create a play on the idea of an exterior, interior space.

Given the location, Bennetts Associates devised a design approach which broke down the building into a collection of individual forms, each of a scale appropriate to context. Angled facades hug the site boundary whilst pitched roofs allow each element to be read individually, with the true scale of the building never apparent, but as the blocks are contiguous, they also work as an ensemble. 

As predominantly the only façade material and extensively used for internal walls, the brickwork needed to be of a quality to match the buildings environment. The textured Dark Multi bricks provided by HG Matthews and meticulously handset with a lime mortar by Signature Brickwork tie the scheme together and allow the building to both stand out and sit comfortably in its surroundings.

The areas of façade enclosing the cinemas and performance spaces are enlivened with textured and glazed brick patterning that provide a playful relief along the façade that changes in its appearance throughout the day. The brickwork pattern was created with a series of protruding specials using several repeating patterns but arranged to appear more playful and randomised across the façade. The mix of glaze was chosen to work as a clear “cracked” glaze so as to not overtly change the appearance of the base brick when view directly but to become reflective when viewed on an oblique angle. The overall arrangement of the brick volumes with subtle variations in angle enhance this effect.

Theatres like BEAM aim to be at the heart of community life, serving as vital cultural hubs that unite people through shared experiences. Since opening, Hertford and the wider community have embraced their building and continue to shape its ongoing success.