Location: Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance Headquarters, Leeds’ Cultural Quarter.
Date of Installation: September 2010
Designed by: Strategic Design Alliance, a partnership between Leeds City Council and Jacobs Architeture.
Main contractor: Wates Construction
Product: Image “18” High Impact Mirrors, with aluminium frames. Floor mounted ballet barre posts and double tier beech ballet barre.
Glass Installations were delighted to install our products for regular clients Wates Construction, one of the UK’s largest family-owned construction companies into the stunning new six-storey home of Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance.
The purpose-built dance headquarters for the two dance companies was built in the heart of Leeds city centre will play host to the largest dance rehearsal space outside of London. The striking building was facilitated by public and private funding with Leeds City Council providing the site and £6.6m, together with Arts Council England investing lottery funds of £4.1 Million, over £1m raised by the Northern Ballet and other funding partners Yorkshire Forward and Leeds Metropolitan University. The project’s total cost was £12 million. Glass Installations regularly works on projects that have investment from both public and private sectors. Often we have been specified as the preferred supplier of professional dance mirrors. We are privileged to showcase our products in a prestigious venue such as this to support the future of arts. Wates secured this challenging project and careful attention to facilities was required for both of the professional dance companies. With a public exhibition space, seven dance studios, including a 230-seat studio theatre, a health suite, wardrobe facilities, office space and meeting rooms, a café and also accommodating the Northern Ballet Academy and Phoenix Youth Academy. We installed Image “18” mirrors and floor mounted posts with double tier ballet barres in five of the seven studios.
Northern Ballet – Image “18” Mirrors and floor mounted ballet barre
In the dance studio we fitted in total around 300 square metres of Image “18” Mirror. For more than 30 years Glass Installations’ highly skilled technicians have been installing one of our most celebrated products for safety and impact our Image “18” Mirror system. Glass Installations blend creative and safety approaches into the manufacture, supply and installation of our products. Image “18” mirror are constructed from 6mm thick mirror and backed with cross linked Acrylic Class “A” Safety backing. The unique design of Image “18”, perfect for their professional use in this project is the impact absorbing Polystyrene cushioner. If the mirror is broken it will not shatter, the glass breaks cleanly with no shards or slivers and remains intact.
Image Mirrors are a design solution for use in contemporary designs such as these dance studios. Fixed mechanically by our purpose made polished Aluminium “J” carriers to the perimeter, together with mastic, the user does not see screws and holes in the mirrors. The uniform visual quality and discrete fixing system makes Glass Installations unique as specialist mirror installers. For teaching facilities and professional use such as Northern Ballet they have the security of Image “18” mirrors being tested to BS6206 Class “A” Impact Performance and ANSI 297.1 1984 Human Body Impact and has a fire rating of BS476 Class O both sides.
Northern Ballet – Floor Mounted double tier ballet barre
Unlike wall fixed ballet barres, floor mounted posts with ballet barres are installed earlier in the construction phase, as the posts sit directly onto the concrete floor slab. Liaison with the main contractor and flooring company was imperative. In this project they required powder coated steel posts and a beech ballet barre. A total of 142 separate posts, with 250 lineal metres of double tier beech ballet barre were fitted. The double tier ballet barre allows both junior and senior dancers to be accommodated.
On completion, Wates secured a Highly Commended Construction Best Practice Award for innovation for the building from the Construction Sector Network.
- If you would like more product information on Image “18” High Impact Mirrors or floor mounted ballet barres, please see our products page.