Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool

The £2.8m face lift of the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool's important Lime Street Square has recently been completed.
The full works include the entrance and foyer area, basement bar and performance space, and the first-floor circle bar and toilets.
The iconic 1930's art deco building is Grade II listed. The architect team worked closely with council planners to ensure the new works both complimented the existing build and was sympathetic to the existing architecture in the square.
The critical lines of sight of the buildings opposite were maintained by tapering the back of the 8 meter digital screen to a point onto 160mm in width. This represented a number of design challenges solved by NES' 3D CAD Inventor drawing.

Cladding:
The cladding is fabricated from 2mm Corten A. In addition to the frameless fixed hook on system NES was responsible for the damp proof membrane, insulation and breather membrane.
The cladding was supplied in grey mill finish. This is to allow the natural rusting of the steel. Though this takes longer than chemical rusting to produce a complete rust layer the effect is very even.
The 40mm air gap behind the cladding provides ventilation to prevent condensation build up and dry the facade.

Digital Screen
To the rear of the screen there are louvered sections to allow fresh air to ventilate the air conditioning units on the roof behind the screen. There are opening lockable doors in the back of the screen. This allows maintenance to be conducted from within the structure or outside the structure depending on the screen being maintained. Each of the digital screens is 960 x 960 x 160mm and individually removable. Within each of these modules 160 x 160mm tiles can be removed from inside the structure.
The back of the screen has a light sensor fitted. This allows for dynamic brightness control and for the screen to operate at far higher output levels without dazzling drivers with high relative brightness or glare.
At ground level the screen had 15mm toughened low iron glass fitted framelessly into the flashing. This protects the screen from graffiti and vandalism in this high traffic area.

Project Details:
Client: Royal Court Trust
Architects: AHMM
Lead contractor: Mellwood Construction
Scope: 200 sq. meters of Corten Cladding, 8m x 4m P10 digital screen. Design, manufacture and installation.