Kova Arts Campus

Studios, a 600-seat theatre and a gallery wing for the Kova Foundation, built inside a fixed donor budget with acoustic isolation that had to be right first time.

The challenge

A theatre needs a room that is silent when the city outside is not. Box-in-box acoustic construction is expensive and hard to fix once the finishes go on, and the budget was set by donors before design was complete.

The foundation also had a fixed opening season. Missing it would have meant a year without programming and without the ticket income the business plan depended on.

Our approach

As design–build lead we priced the acoustic strategy before design development ended, with Ferro Lind and the acoustic consultant at the same table. The building envelope moved to precast so it could be made indoors through the winter.

• Box-in-box acoustic construction priced, mocked up and tested before the main package was let.

• Precast concrete facade panels cast off site through the winter and lifted in over six weeks.

• Theatre rigging and AV commissioned two months before opening, leaving time for rehearsals.

We treated acoustics and budget as one problem. Every decibel had a price, and the foundation could see both before they decided.

Cranes lifting precast panels onto the gallery wing at dusk.

The outcome

The campus opened for its first season in September 2024, within the design–build price. Acoustic testing in the theatre met the design target on the first run.

The precast envelope saved eleven weeks against an in-situ facade and kept the site dry for interior trades through the spring.