Designing and Building a Model of a Theater

Designing and Building a Model of a Theater

Introduction:

For my Design and Technology graphics project, I chose to design and

build a model of a theatre because I am interested in drama and other

aspects of theatre such as stage management and backstage work.

Designing:

During the last 2 years I have designed and built a model of a

theatre. I chose to make this particular project because I love drama

and act in shows with a local theatre group twice a year at the local

theatre. During these shows though, I notice a few problems.

Firstly, there isn't always enough room for the audience to sit

comfortably. The rows of chairs are close together, with no proper

legroom. There is also often not enough seating for everybody to see

the performance that they want to see, and disabled access is not very

good because most theatres use steps.

Another problem I have noticed is that during many shows, the

orchestra overflow from the small orchestra pit into the auditorium

surrounding it, due to the fact that they cannot all squeeze into the

cramped space.

During this project, I aimed to solve these problems by;

1. spacing the seating so that there is enough leg room for the

audience to sit comfortably

2. building a balcony for extra seating

3. having sloped flooring for wheelchair access

and 4. having a large orchestra pit underneath the stage.

I managed to achieve all of these points during this project, except

for point 2. because I ran out of making time.

I do not think that my initial specification was accurate enough to

ensure a quality outcome, because it only included general points of

what I wanted to include in my model, many of which, didn't even make

it to the design stage because I realised that I wouldn't complete the

model if I was too ambitious.

For ideas for my design, I wrote to many different theatres in the

local area. The answers I received from my questionnaire, helped me to