Siobhan Davies Dance Studio

A landmark home for dance, the daring design with 2-storey atrium and undulating ribbon roof that breathes life into an old school building.

A RIBA Award Winner 2006.

Based on observing the dancers’ understanding of space, the scheme plays on themes that are common to bodies and buildings. Inspired by these ideas, we created a setting alive with movement and light that lifts everyday life into dance-like drama.

The studios are approached by a suspended staircase cast in silhouette against a patchwork façade of glass, solid panels and louvres. Here, dancers can stretch on the balustrades as the stair itself flexes like the strings of a huge instrument. The weightless quality of the dancer’s body is echoed in the curves and tensions of the new roof. Forming a single plane through walls and ceiling, its asymmetrical leaping vaults billow above the brick building base, reflecting the sweeping arms of the dancers below.

The rhythmic pattern of the roof vaults, along with carefully positioned glazing to the outside world, orientates the dancers and measures out the space. High-level clerestory windows admit abundant diffuse light whilst avoiding dazzle and glare. In the alternating arches of the roof, the concept of repetition and inversion familiar to choreographers is written in wood, metal and light.