| Howard Theatre, Downing College, Cambridge. 2007 - 2009 |
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| The new Howard Theatre is the latest addition to the late-Georgian classical campus at Downing College, Cambridge. It is situated in the newly formed Howard Court behind Wilkins' west range which is made up of two other Quinlan Terry buildings. The new building creates the missing side of the court and in so doing encloses an 'outside room' with architectural elements repeated on all three sides. Like the other Terry buildings, it has three storeys and a pitched roof. The walls are constructed from Ketton stone with a Doric colonnade. |
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| The architecture of the theatre is focused on the auditorium which is on the first and second floors. It is a small theatre with 128 seats downstairs including a single row of chairs down either side beneath a gallery and upstairs there are 32 more seats. The inspiration came from the Wilkins-designed Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds. Wilkins has great significance for this project as he not only designed many theatres in East Anglia but he also was the first architect of Downing College. |
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| The back drop is painted with a capriccio based on the Acropolis with buildings by Wilkins and Terry's college buildings blended into the scene. On a roundel above the stage is a painting of Apollo and the Muses, after Meng's Parnassus. Three pairs of griffins – the college's crest – are rendered in trompe l'oeil on the remaining three sides on the gallery cove. |
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| Despite the theatre's classical appearance, the servicing is very much state-of-the-art sustainability. The grass court conceals 3km of ground source heat pump pipes that produce 5kw of heat for every 1kw of electricity put in, as a result, the theatre has no need for a boiler. The wc's use grey water for flushing and solar heating provides hot water. |
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