Following competitive interview, Ian Ritchie Architects, supported by Ove Arup and Partners, engineers were appointed by Plymouth Theatre Royal. The client invited Davis Langdon to be QS and project Managers.
The client’s ambition was to create a Production Centre of excellence, providing adaptable facilities for the Theatre Royal’s outstanding home productions in the Main Theatre and Drum; and to continue its success with associate West End productions such as Buddy, Jolson and Oliver.
The project centralises all production activities, including the construction of sets, costumes and props with rehearsal, education, and communal spaces.  Performers can rehearse and be available for measuring-up and fitting costumes as the set is fabricated. Designers, producers and directors have spaces to work, allowing the complete process of production to be integrated. The Production Centre known as TR2 will be capable of supporting simultaneously two separate productions.
TR2 offers students the chance to witness the manufacture of sets, props and costumes and to mix with professional performers.
The building occupies a prominent waterfront site within the estuary valley of the river Plym.  The architectural concept is developed from complementary themes and strategies: Driftwood -  volumes of the building washed up by the tide on the rock beach landscape; Cardboard Theatre – the overlapping layers of the building present a montage of activities within; Veils: naturally weathering and light filtering skins of the envelope; Yin and Yang – the principle activities of manufacture and performance organised by rotational symmetry around routes will encourage chance encounters and a sense of community.
A range of weathering materials was used externally, and the woven phosphor bronze wrap of the ‘beached’ performance spaces presents a soft metal building to the public riverside footpath. Internally, workshop floors and walls are of plywood, allowing them to be exploited as construction surfaces and replaced economically.
The Production Centre was completed in Autumn 2002.