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design competition
Haworth Tompkins and Studio Andrew Todd were invited by the Vile de Lausanne to participate in the design competition for the reconfiguration of the existing opera house’s backstage and stage areas. The design response was primarily historical; an attempt to restore clarity to the ‘out of town’ nature of the original building’s site and to resolve some of the difficulties of its siting on a diagonally sloping terrain.
Using an engineered timber structure, the proposed cladding was a veil of glass, photovoltaic cells and copper tubes, to dematerialise the building’s necessary mass and to create a link with the remnant of garden in which the building sits. New space was found for a studio theatre and for lively new cafes and bars facing the Square.
