Design challenges overcome during Lyric Theatre refurbishment

The Lyric Theatre is one of Australia’s most innovative and attractive theatre spaces.

It has recently undergone a $12m refurbishment featuring improved lines of sight, luxurious furnishings, cantilevered seating arrangements, and automated moveable walls to reconfigure the space to suit productions and audience capacity.

Precise Fire were engaged by Erilyan to complete the design and construction of the fire services for the theatre.

The project itself ran very smoothly, delivered within time and budget allocations.

The only real challenges were posed by some of the architectural elements of the refurbishment. The ceiling features a dramatic ‘waves’ design, so the fire services had to be designed to ft around the structural steel framework.

An innovative approach to installing the underseating protection measures was developed for the additional rows of seating that were cantilevered off to the sides of the main seating areas.

The scope of works included:

• sprinklers
• smoke detection systems
• EWIS (emergency warning and intercommunication system)
• upgraded fire panels
• fire, curtain and exit lighting trips activation and control.

For more information, please contact Geoff Moore on 1300 728 580.