MAC - Metropolitan Arts Centre | Hackett Hall McKnight

This commission was won through an RIBA International Design Contest in 2007. The building was completed by Hackett Hall McKnight in February 2012 and provides performance spaces, art galleries and supporting facilities. A new public space for the city has been provided in the foyers which recall the tight streetscape of the neighbourhood – a compressed urban environment characterised by top–light. The approach to material and construction evokes a relationship to the robust character of the preceding Victorian merchant city; large scale tough brick buildings. The construction uses the structural insitu concrete as well as the brick as an exposed finish.