World First Laidlaw Launched in April, Wins First Award
We are delighted that our Music Centre at the University of St Andrew’s has won a St Andrew’s Preservation Trust Pride of Place Award.
A critical component of the project was the creation of a new quadrangle as a southern extension of the historic St Mary’s Quad, which is the oldest part of the University, so it is a huge honour for us to have won an Award from the Preservation Trust.
The focal point of the new public space is a century-old arboretum, where pedestrian routes linking the Town and The University come together.
The Laidlaw has also been shortlisted in two categories at the Scottish Design Awards, in the Public Building and Education Building Categories.
The Laidlaw is positioned between three listed buildings, and the new architecture is designed to complement its historic neighbours.
The University supports a thriving culture of performing groups and events. The project provides a new home for St Andrews’ Music Centre in a building that enables community access. Each ‘musical’ space in the building is designed to be acoustically excellent, but with flexibility and ease of use in mind. The quality of the acoustic in these spaces will allow the musical excellence of rehearsals and performances to flourish for students, teachers, performers and audiences alike.
The Oak lined McPherson Recital room is the world’s first chamber hall with a reverberation chamber. This allows the hall to be ‘tuned’ from nearly 4 seconds reverberation time for organ and choir work down to less than a second for more analytical rehearsal work.
The room is sized to allow a symphony orchestra to rehearse and for chamber music recitals with audiences of up to 250. The moving floor also allows for a wide range of layouts as the entire floor of the hall incorporates a grid of mechanised lifts which allow an infinite variety of spatial configurations - another world first.