Haworth Tompkins has been shortlisted in the Innovation of the Year category at the AJ100 Awards, for the Modular Auditorium most recently used at @sohoplace. The new theatre incorporates a modular, highly flexible auditorium, the latest evolution of a widely-applicable system developed as a research project.
Aware that auditoria are becoming increasingly complex to design from scratch by non-specialist architects, we began studying an off-site fabricated kit of parts that could be assembled in numerous permutations to achieve different capacities, seating formats and staging options, each with dense capacity, excellent sightlines and clear acoustics. We conceived a highly compact, multi-tiered modular steel structure that could be deployed around three or four sides of a central seating, standing or performing space.
Working with specialist stage engineers and manufacturers Tait Towers in the US, we co-developed a detailed 3d digital construction model for the 800-1050 seat Bridge Theatre. The process allowed us to optimise steel weights and weld strengths, significantly reducing the embodied carbon of manufacture and transport compared to conventional stock sections. Wiring runs, ventilation ducts and hard-wired infrastructure were incorporated into the factory-made units, avoiding the need for time-consuming multiple trades on site and enabling a much higher level of quality control.
The system was modularised to container lengths for ease of shipping and assembly on site, allowing international opportunities for the use of a work-tested, highly effective auditorium. It is possible to achieve stand alone, plug-and-play auditoria ranging from 400-1200 seats using the same system. The latest version for the 600 seat @sohoplace, again manufactured by Tait and this time collaborating with Charcoalblue, uses similar modular components and built in infrastructure but allows the surrounding balcony tiers also to be simply demounted via folding wall bracketry, giving even greater levels of staging flexibility.
The result, according to early reaction from critics, actors and audiences, is one of the most intimate and most theatrically potent auditoria of this scale ever built.
Pembroke Mill Lane for Pembroke College, Cambridge, has been shortlisted for the 2026 RIBA Stirling Prize, the UK's most prestigious award for architecture.
Wonderful to see the new performance spaces at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) alive with performance, rehearsal and teaching.
Pembroke Mill Lane, Cambridge has received a RIBA National Award.
Haworth Tompkins has been shortlisted in two categories at this year's Building Design Architect of the Year Awards.
We are so pleased to see The Court Theatre continue to receive industry recognition, with multiple honours at Friday night's Property Council New Zealand Industry Awards, including the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Judges' Choice Award.
In the second of three NLA articles, Tom Gibson, Associate Director at Haworth Tompkins, reflects on the practice’s international mass timber projects and the lessons they offer for timber construction in the UK.
Last week, Haworth Tompkins received the Dewi-Prys Thomas Award for our work on Theatr Clwyd in Mold, North Wales. The award celebrates the role of design in improving quality of life and supporting regeneration across Wales.
The redevelopment of Pembroke Mill Lane, Cambridge, for Pembroke College has been recognised with four RIBA awards, including a 2026 RIBA East Award, Building of the Year, Project Architect and the Conservation Award.
| 25.03.26 | Mass Timber Design Innovations: from fire strategy to carbon reduction, the challenges and opportunities of designing with timber. → |
| 30.10.25 | Construction Reaches Topping Off Milestone for the New Home of the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University → |
| 28.07.25 | Haworth Tompkins reveals plans for the redevelopment of Grade I listed De La Warr Pavilion → |
| 13.05.25 | Haworth Tompkins to lead design of affordable housing in £2.5 Billion York Central Regeneration → |