Mac (Birmingham) - Building

Building

mac has been transformed into a spacious and fully accessible cultural complex, impressively equipped to redefine the expectations and opportunities of an arts centre for the 21st century.

The development has increased the public areas by 40 per cent, simplifying navigation around and between spaces while maintaining a human scale and elements of the character and eccentricity for which mac is renowned.

The centre had grown in many stages since the early 1960s, creating a warren of small spaces with constant changes of level that fell far short of modern standards of accessibility, presenting the architects with a major problem.

The basic design solution was to create a new central ‘box’ to pull together the disparate elements that were being retained and create significant new spaces, including two new rehearsal studios in a formerly unused roof space. The apparent simplicity of this solution masked the major challenge of connecting the various first floor levels by introducing an imperceptible lateral slope.

Sources of inspiration include mac’s natural setting and its ground-breaking creative engagement with Birmingham’s communities. mac is located in Cannon Hill Park, one of the largest and most popular of Birmingham’s public parks, 1.5 miles south of the city centre, a close neighbour of Warwickshire County Cricket ground and readily accessible from the new mixed development at Edgbaston Mill. Extensive glazing at all levels in the foyer areas brings the park into the building, with the re-landscaped terrace at ground level creating a physical connection between mac and its environment. Internally and externally the building is finished in a range of materials, including steel, slate, wood and stone, designed to weather and change appearance organically over time.

Internally, the wood panelling in the café, stone work and carpeting in the foyers is all part of a major creative project led by artist Myfanwy Johns and incorporating designs from the women of the Bosnian Cultural Centre Midlands. The carpet provides a vibrant ribbon of colour running through the muted natural tones of the other materials.

A new covered bridge across the River Rea forms the main entrance to the building, leading into the extensive open and light space of the ground floor foyer, housing sales and information points, a new café bar - with a major sculptural commission by artist Laura Johnston - and galleries leading through to a smaller bar area.

Adjacent to the new Bridges café bar, the Hexagon remains the most architecturally distinctive element to survive from the 1960s. Previously an almost freestanding structure it has been largely enclosed by the new development. This part of the building contains the refurbished Hexagon Theatre and the Bryant Suite meeting rooms (named for long-standing supporters of mac), whose wood and glass construction allows tremendous views across the park.

Another new bridge connects the upper level of the Hexagon to the first floor foyer, giving access both to mac’s substantial new exhibition gallery, which will be one of the largest contemporary art spaces in the West Midlands, and its larger Theatre, which has been stripped, re-equipped and linked to a new audio-visual media suite enabling remote recording of live events

In addition to the new spaces, pre-existing visual arts and performance studios have all been refurbished and other areas converted to create meeting rooms, which like many of mac's facilities will be available for hire. All levels are now connected by lifts.

A future aspiration is to build a new medium-scale auditorium on the present site of the outdoor Arena, thus fulfilling the original vision of mac's founders, John English and Alicia Randle. The building has been designed to make a simple connection with this new addition if and when funding becomes available.