Charcoalblue Project Wins USITT 2012 Architecture Honor AwardLondon-based theatre design consultant, Charcoalblue's work is clearly making waves on both sides of the pond, as the multi-award winning transformation of the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres wins the prestigious USITT 2012 Architecture Honor Award. No stranger to this particular accolade, in 2007 Charcoalblue was delighted to see two of its previous projects, London's Young Vic and The Unicorn Theatre, receive USITT Merit awards. For the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST), Charcoalblue consultants worked in close collaboration with project architects Bennetts Associates and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) project team to transform the now critically acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. RSC artistic director, Michael Boyd has since described it as, "a miracle of a space that combines the epic and the intimate ... it's quite extraordinary." Charcoalblue provided complete design and planning consultancy on the auditorium, foyers, and backstage areas, as well as the design and integration of the technical systems. Managing director of Charcoalblue, Andy Hayles, who collected the award alongside Bennetts' architect Simon Erridge and deputy project director for the RST, Simon Harper, says: "We're delighted to receive the USITT Architecture Honor Award for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. We're thrilled that our work has found so much favor worldwide with so many influential and respected people: the architects, the clients, our peers, and most importantly the end-users and audiences. The fact that our projects have also won a raft of awards and have been praised worldwide is the icing on the cake." Since 1994, USITT's Architecture Awards have given public and professional recognition for contemporary architectural projects. A juried process is used to determine each year's winners and each are given either Honor or Merit Awards. Past award winners have hailed from England, Germany, Japan, California, New York, and all points between. 
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