Music Research Centre, University of York

In recent years, the Music Department at the University of York has built an unequalled reputation for advances in electroacoustic and computer music. The brief for the Music Research Centre required highly specialised facilities to deliver the music research curriculum. These included a 150 seat auditorium; a flat performing area with raked seating and reconfigurable speaker positions; a studio control room; recording and post-production studios. The Centre’s auditorium is linked to the existing Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall by a first-floor bridge-foyer so that the two can operate in tandem. Aesthetically the south elevation, facing the lake, responds to the 1960s concert hall with a rhythmical extension of its window mullions and dynamic solar shading.