Regeneratively-designed building will include interconnected and adaptable multi-use spaces to support creativity and embrace future change.
A building to foster groundbreaking performance, public gathering, teaching, and international research, the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Creativity & Performance was designed by Haworth Tompkins (architect and design lead) and ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge (architect of record) in collaboration with theater and acoustic consultant Charcoalblue. Shawmut Design and Construction serves as the project’s construction manager. The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Creativity & Performance will contain interconnected, adaptable multi-use spaces designed to support creativity and embrace future change. The center will include two flexible performance venues—the West Stage, where large-scale productions will be produced, and the versatile and intimate East Stage—as well as light-filled, state-of-the-art rehearsal studios and teaching spaces, a spacious public lobby, and an outdoor performance yard to host ticketed and free programming. The center will also include dressing rooms, technical shops, and administrative offices for the organization, as well as a modest café.
The A.R.T.’s new home has been conceived and will be programmed to center community. It will be open to all during designated hours of operation, offering free Wi-Fi, food and beverage service, public restrooms, gathering spaces, indoor and outdoor public art and performance, and room rental opportunities. Designed with a blend of environmental and social strategies to minimize embodied and operational carbon, maximize wellbeing, boost biodiversity, and enhance resiliency, the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Creativity & Performance embraces Harvard’s ambitious sustainability priorities. The building is designed to achieve the Living Building Challenge core accreditation from the International Living Future Institute in recognition that it gives more to its environment than it takes.
Conceived through core principles of openness, artistic flexibility, collaboration, sustainability, and regenerative design, it will be constructed with laminate mass timber, reclaimed brick, and cedar cladding to minimize its lifetime carbon budget. The building’s chilled water, hot water, and electric utilities will come from Harvard’s new lower-carbon District Energy Facility. It will capture additional clean energy from rooftop solar panels and leverage natural ventilation to reduce energy usage and enhance occupant comfort. Additionally, a green roof and extensive plantings will aid stormwater attenuation while increasing biodiversity and occupant wellbeing. Read more about this exciting project here.
HT Director Lucy Picardo is joining the NLA Expert Panel on Culture 2025 to investigate how the rich and unique culture and character of the capital can be maintained, celebrated and enhanced. Lucy has considerable experience in the performing arts and cultural sectors including the refurbishment of the Grade I listed Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the restoration and renewal of the Grade II* Chichester Festival Theatre.
She is currently leading on the redevelopment of Theatr Clwyd, the extension of the Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo, the redevelopment of Grade I listed St George’s Guildhall, King’s Lynn, the Hexagon Theatre Studio in Reading, a masterplan for the London Museum Docklands and the redevelopment of Grade I listed De La Warr Pavilion.
Collated with thought leaders from across the industry, each of the 15 NLA expert panels will address the critical challenges facing London and champion bold ideas and initiatives to future-proof our industry and help drive London towards equity, sustainability and prosperity. Read more here - https://nla.london/topics/culture
2024 was a busy year at HT and as we settle into 2025, we have been reflecting on all that was achieved through the collective efforts of our team, clients and collaborators. We celebrated the completion and launch of The Warburg Institute, Lambeth Archives in Brixton, 67 affordable new homes for local people at Wood Street in Waltham Forest and the first phase of Pembroke Mill Lane in Cambridge.
Our projects won another batch of awards including a RIBA London Award for Fish Island Village, a high commendation for Pembroke Mill Lane Phase 1 at the Wood awards, Industria won a NLA Workplace award and Commercial project of the year at The London Construction Awards and National Theatre – NT Future won the Religion & Culture category at the 2024 Architecture Today, buildings that stand the test of time awards. We were also named as one of 6 inaugural AJ100 Champions for our continued commitment to sustainability and ‘all-round excellence’.
We continue to win new commissions across all our major sectors in the UK and across Europe including theatres in Stockholm and Vienna, masterplan visions at York Central, St Botolph’s quarter in Colchester and the London Museum Docklands, new buildings at Swindon Science + Innovation park and new neighbourhoods - Holloway Park in Islington and Dagenham Green Phase 2 for Peabody, we also won the Hackney New Homes Programme Design Competition which will deliver much needed council housing.
Planning permission was received for several projects - St George’s Guildhall, King’s Lynn, Bromley-by-Bow Industrial Park, Birmingham Smithfield and Hexagon studio theatre in Reading. Several projects continue to make progress on site - A.R.T in Harvard, Wembley North East Lands, the Court Theatre in New Zealand, ECU City Campus in Perth Australia, Theatr Clwyd, our first Passivhaus project Greenhill Centre in Newham, Pier Road in Bexley, The Old Vic Annex, TEG Olympia, Canning Town Old Library & Sentralbadet in Bergen.
High points for the studio include launching our first Level 6 & Level 7 apprenticeship scheme and welcoming our first two apprentices to HT. We continued to strengthen our commitment to embedding regenerative design principles across the practice with the appointment of a new sustainability designer and continued our support of the Architects Declare movement and became an inaugural sponsor of ACAN.
As a studio we celebrated a series of significant promotions from both our architectural and studio support teams rewarding the valuable contribution they have made and recognising their leading roles within the studio, work on key projects, business development and practice wide initiatives. Other highlights include Director Lucy Picardo being appointed to join the NLA Expert Panel on Culture and Associate Director Ken Okonkwo being selected as Town Architect for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham by the Mayor of London.
The theatre construction, in a strategic alliance with the City of Vienna and Wien Holding, is intended to be completed by 2027 and will provide new cultural and economic impetus in the performing arts scene within Austria.
With 1,800 seats, this is the largest privately financed theatre project of the past 100 years and will not only be one of the most important venues in Austria, but will also set new standards in international theatre architecture.
It uniquely combines private-sector experience and cultural commitment with the highest sustainability standards, creating a contemporary entertainment hotspot in Vienna's tradition-steeped Prater district. Read more here - Link
Visualisation: Haworth Tompkins + Dietrich Untertrifaller
Construction of Perth’s first fully comprehensive, inner-city university has reached a major milestone, with the Edith Cowan University (ECU) City campus reaching its full structural height. The ‘topping out’ milestone marks major progress on one of Perth’s most significant developments, with internal fit-out and finishing works continuing throughout 2025 ahead of the campus opening in 2026.
ECU City will feature state-of-the-art learning, engagement and performance spaces giving students and staff access to learn, teach, create and perform in world-class spaces. The new home for WAAPA includes a Playhouse Theatre, Recital Hall, Flex Theatre, Jazz and Contemporary Venue, Aboriginal Performance venue, and Dance Theatre, along with a range of teaching spaces and rehearsal venues, workshop areas and dressing rooms. Haworth Tompkins is working with Australian architects Lyons, Perth-based Silver Thomas Hanley, theatre consultants CharcoalBlue, acoustics designers Marshall Day, Head contractor Multiplex and engineers Stantec.
ECU City is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people.
HT Director Roger Watts was recently on site at the Court Theatre in New Zealand for the first time since 2016 when the site was still empty and bare. Haworth Tompkins has been involved in the project since 2013 after Roger fortuitously met members of The Court at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre. During the recent visit Roger met Matthew Webby of Athfield Architects, the local lead architect on the project, in person for the first time after working together for five years via online communication.
Very few projects of the complexity and magnitude of The Court Theatre rebuild are designed without in-person collaboration. However, the use of technology following the Covid-19 pandemic has been of benefit to this project, with project members able to collaborate closely via video meetings held globally. Roger will return to site for the theatre’s grand opening in May 2025.
National Theatre – NT Future has been announced as winner of the Religion & Culture category at the 2024 Architecture Today, Buildings that stand the test of time awards. The awards demonstrate a strong track record for delivering on their environmental, functional, community and cultural ambitions, awarding architectural excellence, longevity, and a commitment to community, sustainability, and innovation.
The judges commented “In the 50 years since it was built the National Theatre has had to evolve to reflect the changing expectations of theatre and audiences and the evolution of the South Bank. Haworth Tompkins’ intelligent and sensitive interventions have been pulled off with aplomb and will set the stage for the next 50 years.” National Theatre
Industria Barking has won the Workplace category at the 2024 New London Architecture Awards. The judges praised the project for its bold commitment to blending industrial uses with workplaces and community spaces.
The project was designed in collaboration with Ashton Smith Associates for client BeFirst and represents an innovative and ambitious approach to modern industrial design that densifies and diversifies workspace in a move away from the traditional typology of single-storey, low density ‘sheds’. Read more here - https://www.haworthtompkins.com/work/barking-industria
Phase 1 of Pembroke Mill Lane, Cambridge development has been highly Commended at the Wood Awards in the Education & Public Sector category. The project forms part of the Mill Lane development for Pembroke College: the most significant expansion of the College since the fourteenth century, within a highly complex site in the historic city centre.
The project provides a range of public and collegiate spaces within both new and existing buildings, linked by an external landscape that continues and extends the language of Pembroke’s distinctive gardens. The Wood Awards recognises, encourages, and promotes outstanding design, craftsmanship and installation using wood. Pembroke College, Cambridge