High lights … the glowing polycarbonate ventilation shaft of the new Yard theatre near the Olympic site. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright View image in fullscreen High lights … the glowing polycarbonate ventilation shaft of the new Yard theatre near the Olympic site. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright Architecture Our loos? They’re inspired by Milan’s Villa Necchi! The reborn planks-and-plasterboard theatre trouncing its flashy neighbours A low-budget building by the Olympic site that was never meant to last has been given a £4m revamp full of Italian pizzazz. Now The Yard is putting bums on (heated) seats – and Ian McKellen is soon to star
Oliver Wainwright Tue 27 Oct 2026 06.00 CET Last modified on Tue 27 Oct 2026 06.04 CET Share Prefer the Guardian on Google S ince the 2012 Olympics, the skyline of Hackney Wick in east London has bristled with cranes. The athletes may be long gone but the legacy of the sporting spectacle rolls on, as developers continue to extract profits from rising land values around the Olympic park. Across the canal, in this former industrial edgeland, there are more cranes than ever, busily hoisting prefabricated brick cladding panels into place, wrapping the latest loft-living concepts with a veneer of industrial chic. Where factories once stood, replicas of factories have risen, complete with sawtooth roofs and Crittall-esque windows, offering concierge-serviced views of the surrounding regeneration-scape.
But among all the crane towers, one is different from the rest. It stands still, now relieved of its duties, and encased in a silvery sheath of polycarbonate. Big red letters cling to the shimmering shaft, spelling out the new home of the Yard theatre . Once used to haul bits of buildings, the steel crane tower now serves as a beacon-cum-ventilation shaft, glowing by night while exhausting stale air from the theatre below.
It is one of many elements of this striking, low-budget building that have been cleverly reused and recycled, bringing economical pizzazz to the energetic young establishment. Founded in 2011 in a former printworks, the plucky warehouse theatre has come of age, with a £4m new building on the same site – and Ian McKellen set to star in the next show .
View image in fullscreen Will the actors’ knees be able to take it? … the concrete stage. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright “We only expected it to last a few months,” says Jay Miller, founder and artistic director of the Yard, describing the theatre’s first incarnation. He cannily secured a cheap lease by pitching to the building’s owner that he could eliminate their security costs by occupying the vacant warehouse. He then hired the recent graduates of Practice Architecture to conjure an ad hoc auditorium on a shoestring. Their beguiling bricolage of butcher’s curtains, pink plasterboard and scavenged scaffolding planks lasted more than a decade and drew a loyal local crowd, staging shows that transferred to the National Theatre, became Bafta-winning television and won an Olivier award.
Miller, ever on the lookout for funding opportunities, saw a chance to expand when plans were mooted to redevelop the surrounding Queen’s Yard into a mixed-use district . That project never materialised, but Miller succeeded in leveraging £3m of CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) from the London Legacy Development Corporation – the post-Olympic regeneration body – to fund the new theatre. In effect, the apartment blocks rising all around the Yard helped to pay for…