State Theatre Centre WA

The State Theatre Centre of Western Australia is an architecturally bold cultural venue set within a dense inner-city precinct, immediately adjacent to critical services infrastructure including active train tunnels. Delivering the building demanded careful planning around construction staging, ground movement, and vibration control, with stringent tolerances to protect nearby assets and maintain uninterrupted operations.

Acoustic isolation was a core performance driver. The theatres required acoustic separation not only from surrounding traffic and rail activity but also from other internal theatres, rehearsal spaces, and public areas. This necessitated layered isolation strategies: floating floor systems, discontinuous wall and ceiling assemblies, tuned resilient mountings, and vibration breaks at structural interfaces to minimise structure-borne transmission.

The architectural vision introduced significant structural challenges—long-span and discontinuous load paths, transfers over constrained zones, and connections that had to reconcile expressive forms with strict deflection and serviceability criteria. Subgrade works were coordinated around existing utilities and rail easements, with foundation solutions and settlement control developed to manage differential movement and protect acoustic performance.

Ironbridge Technical Director Bassam Matty led the engineering for these complex interfaces, developing solutions that balanced architectural expression, constructability, and performance. His work encompassed vibration and dynamic response analysis, isolation detailing at key junctions, and buildable connection systems that preserved the purity of the architectural form while achieving the project’s demanding acoustic targets. The result is a landmark venue where clarity of sound, structural finesse, and urban sensitivity converge.