The venue is a magnificent Grade II listed theatre space within a former Methodist Church, now part of The Milton Building and home to the University's Drama, Theatre & Performance department.
Milos was one of eight companies invited to tender for the project by David Wainwright, senior technician and manager of resources for drama, theatre & performance.
Studio One is used extensively by the University's BA Honours in Drama and its Technical Theatre Foundation Degree courses, as well as for numerous visiting productions, and as a learning resource for other departments across the university.
The facility is a 15m high vaulted-ceiling room, complete with wooden beams, tall arched stained glass windows, rose window and many other superbly preserved original features.
The requirement was to design an elegant rigging solution that harmonised with the space perfectly, whilst offering convenient floor level access for the rigging of production equipment used on the shows.
The idea of using the single pile winding winches, instead of multiple motors for each of the grids, came from Milos UK project manager Glen Brown and his Peterborough based design team. It combines the principals of classic stage engineering whilst utilising the latest technology in a unique space.
The hybrid trussing structure the 520 high capacity series and 400 series trussing products. Due to the Grade II Listing status of the Milton Building, none of the trussing structure could touch the walls of the actual building, adding another challenge and dimension to the winning design.
It was the first time that the University has worked directly with Milos, but in the Milton Building's other performance space, Studio Two, a Milos Quicktruss 290 Quatro grid was installed about three years ago.
For the Studio One installation, Milos UK commissioned Independent Studio Services from Bury St Edmonds to undertake the site work and logistics, a task completed over a period of six weeks.
Says Glen Brown, "Working on a complete and very specific project like this was a real pleasure and a great challenge - and this is what we like. It was fantastic working with David and his team, which proved a great collaborative relationship, producing many ideas and exactly the results that everyone wanted."
(Jim Evans)
