The Yard Theatre

The Yard is a theatre conceived by Jay Miller, designed and built by Practice Architecture, in collaboration with Christopher Daniel. We converted a dormant warehouse in Queen’s Yard, Hackney Wick, splitting it into two sections – one housing the theatre, and the other the bar, in which the back ‘bowl’ of the seating rake is fully visible. Made with recycled and reclaimed material, the theatre seats 110 in a fully raked amphitheatre. The stage is large, with four performer entrances and exits. There are excellent acoustics. In keeping with the honest aesthetic of the architecture, the dressing room is a semi-transparent light box that sits in the bar, making visible silhouettes preparing for the stage. We think there is a beauty in the collision between Greek and Elizabethan architecture and its juxtaposition in an industrial warehouse space where the concrete floor and corrugated roof are clearly visible.