Royal Irish Academy of Music

Introduction /Background

The Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) extension, completed in July 2023, has significantly increased the original accommodation on the site of the existing Westland Row Georgian Mid-Terrace Protected Structure, with the addition of a new 6-storey, purpose built, contemporary music faculty building located to the rear of the existing terrace, equipped to the highest standard and delivering a vastly improved performance and teaching environment of unrivalled quality in response to the briefing requirements of the Academy.  

The exceptional architectural design combines carefully selected materials and finishes to create an educational environment with a refined aesthetic that extends beyond fitness for purpose, to inspire and excite students, visitors and performers as they experience the building.  The extension incorporates the use of buff brick with contemporary and imaginative detailing and a repeating window module to echo the proportions of the original listed Georgian façade in a distinctly modern, but complementary interpretation.  

Other key features of interest include full-height glazed flyover links spanning across the external courtyard between the old and new buildings, with a living ‘green roof’ installed to the flyover corridor and adjacent flat roofs, each specified with grasses and wildflower planting designed to be overlooked from the many rooms sharing a view overlooking the courtyard amenity space, adding welcome natural biodiversity to an otherwise urban setting.

The new Recital Hall within the building is not only an optimum performance auditorium for RIAM’s student and visiting artists to experience, but is also a welcome addition to the city’s cultural offering as a premium standard, intimate performance venue (capacity312 seats) with optimal acoustics, and which now offers a vastly expanded programme of performances now open to the wider public.  The venue has already hosted performances from the Irish Baroque Orchestra, Chamber Choir Ireland and the Irish Chamber Orchestra since its first programme of concerts commenced in September 2023.

Designed principally to accommodate chamber music, but with the flexibility to cater for the widest range of performance types, the hall makes use of an innovative system of acoustic curtains which can be partially or fully retracted behind concealed pockets, to control and adapt the acoustic response depending on performance requirements.  The hall is also designed with full AV inter-connectivity to allow for use for live recording and tv / internet broadcast transmission when required.   The hall also incorporates projection facilities for opera sub-titles, conference, lecturing  and film events.  

The facility has enabled the academy to significantly expand its student capacity for both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and to offer a more varied and flexible programme of courses, tuition, and performances as part of its curriculum.  

Brief

The Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) was founded in 1848 making it Ireland’s oldest musical institution of almost 150 years. The academy is ranked among the top 50 institutions in the world for the performing arts.

RIAM is a long-established educational facility and centre for musical excellence, renowned nationally and with an international reputation, (it is ranked among the top 50 institutions in the world for the performing arts).  It regularly attracts world-class musicians to undertake teaching sessions and mentoring roles, and has a growing proportion of international students enrolled in its degree courses.  It is also well known nationally within the educational community for its busy programme of evening and weekend musical tuition classes, which are attended by primary and secondary school-age children, locally and from all-Ireland, catering for around 1,500 children per annum.

TODD Architects secured the prestigious € 16m commission to reconfigure and extend RIAM’s original building in Westland Row through a limited design competition in 2020. The brief from RIAM was to create a world-class Music Conservatoire to facilitate its expanding programme of activities.

The project was completed July 2023, where it was warmly applauded in the press and amongst the classical music community for its unique design, generous amenity and the refined acoustic response of its two performance spaces.

The design of the extension includes a sequence of spaces originating from the existing RIAM entrance hall which forms the principle entrance into the Academy via Westland Row.  From the existing reception hall, the visitor passes through the existing stair-hall serving the main terrace, progressing across a glazed link corridor which oversails an external courtyard, revealing views of the new contemporary brick façade, which itself faces back towards the original Georgian rear terrace building, revealing sections of old original stonework, lime render, and original timber windows and allowing an immediate visual understanding of the connection between old and new.  Passing further from the link corridor into the extension, the circulation route extends further into a multi-storey concourse which transitions between a complex arrangement of nine different floor levels designed to marry in with the sectional arrangement of the original building, and from which access to all points of the building is achieved, including lift access to each level within the extension footprint.

The new six-storey facility and recital hall are positioned behind the original Georgian building, providing an impressive expansion entirely invisible from the point of entry at Westland Row.

The RIAM briefing requirements for the extension comprised of the following :

• A double storey Opera Studio and orchestral rehearsal space
• 75 teaching rooms with adjustable acoustics
• A live recording and sound engineer’s studio teaching space
• A state-of-the-art library, incorporating private study and archive storage facilities
• A sonic-arts hub for electronic-music composition
• A 60-seat lecture theatre
• music therapy spaces
• A central concourse with performance / casual seating areas

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Key Challenges

Other than working within a limited budget and responding to common delays shared by all projects undertaken at construction stage during the Covid-19 lock-down periods, achieving the necessary acoustic performance was the primary technical and unique challenge for this project.  The Recital Hall, for example, (the primary performance space) was required to offer the capability for adjustment of the acoustic room response depending on the nature of the performance.  Our solution was to provide acoustic curtains concealed within acoustic timber pockets around the Recital Hall room wall linings that could be readily adjusted using manual pull-cords to provide variable levels of acoustic absorbency to suit the requirements of the performer. 

The hall finishes were a combination of timber and exposed concrete, to provide a careful acoustic balance of reverberation and absorbency, controlled by architectural detailing under the guidance of the acoustician.

Within the hall, space has been planned for a future organ installation without significant disturbance of the existing walnut linings, which provide the Recital Hall with its distinctive and comforting visual aesthetic.

Unique to this project was the specific consideration of the acoustic response (as above), where use of materials in the larger public circulation areas and Opera Studio were also carefully selected to control reverberation.  Perforated plasterboard linings, proprietary acoustic timber ceiling and wall panels were used in conjunction with exposed concrete to create an aesthetically rich and varied experience when circulating through the building, while controlling the potential for noise interference to the numerous practice, performance rooms, teaching and seminar spaces adjoining the main concourse.

Project Features :

• The client requirements at briefing stage, as outlined above, identified the urgent need for new purpose-designed performance facilities, in addition to teaching/practice spaces for individual and one-to-one tuition.  Primary requirements of the project were

1. Provision of suitable accommodation (as per briefing requirements outlined above) ;
2. Efficient use of space and successful integration with the existing main Westland Row terrace, which would maintain its floor space for admin, teaching and performance rooms ;
3. Excellence in acoustic response throughout the facility :
4. Ensuring the long-term viability of the faculty through a sustainable design response to the brief.  

• Established since 1870, RIAM had maintained a presence on Westland Row, with the existing4-storey Georgian terrace and Protected Structure containing the original school which expanded progressively over many generations to the rear of the site with ad-hoc additions until the site was fully developed, but vastly under-utilised with a combination of one and two storey buildings.

• The eventual decision by RIAM to retain the existing Georgian Protected Structure, and to clear entirely the remainder of the site and create a new purpose-built facility had several benefits in terms of sustainability, which was an important client consideration at briefing stage.  Firstly, the existing Georgian terrace buildings have protected status and form part of the established streetscape of Westland Row. It was decided that the fabric of the existing building would be upgraded when funds permitted a deep retrofit refurbishment, involving complete replacement of windows, new insulation and building services, and in doing so retaining the embedded carbon of the original structure.

• The removal of the existing buildings to the remainder of the site was also considered carefully to assess whether retention, in whole or in part, was either desirable or viable in terms of either function, or sustainability. 

• The RIAM facility in its previous form did not have a performance facility capable of accommodating the orchestral ensembles for which students were training, and other venues were being hired to satisfy their requirements for both rehearsal and concerts.  It was considered that the creation of a new extension, adjacent but separate from the existing Georgian terrace buildings, provided the unique opportunity to create a purpose-built facility to satisfy RIAM’s performance and educational needs, and would also allow the school to continue to function on-site, albeit in a reduced capacity, while the extension was built. 

• The new extensions were designed utilising the roof for solar PV panels (58,000 kw/hrs per annum), a concrete frame whose insulated thermal mass (external wall U-value 0.18w/m2k) responded appropriately to the unique acoustic requirements of the brief, sealing the main performance space within a 300mm depth concrete enclosure to prevent noise interference from the busy city street environment outside.

• The success of the project is defined by its design response to acoustic requirements, the delivery of performance spaces and teaching practice rooms, a sensitive aesthetic response that respects both the original Georgian terrace while complementing it with a contrasting and contemporary design, and in delivering a project within a sustainable strategy for the client that will secure the use of the Westland Row campus in the long term.