Architects Set the Stage to Bring Drama to Town
Sacramento Business Journal
November 23, 2007
With a spate of performing buildings going up around town, it would seem Sacramento has theater fever.
“Performing arts buildings are happening again, they were out of vogue for awhile,” said Stuart Buck of Williams + Paddon Architects and Planners, the principal in charge of the new Benvenuti Performing Arts Center at Natomas Charter School. “They realized that actually it’s a good thing.”
This trend, though, can produce very different results depending on where the performing arts buildings and theaters go in and how they are designed.
The Natomas Charter School is a new building. But some of the other centers are simply renovations of existing structures, such as at American River College, or complete overhauls of unsatisfactory spaces, such as the new cabaret theater going in at 10th and K streets in the old Woolworth building in downtown Sacramento.
No matter how the building starts out, a theater is a complicated undertaking.
“They are the most complex type of building,” said Buck. The architects and designers have to take into account the unique sight lines, acoustic requirements, visual impacts and functions, like lifting scenery high above the stage without interfering with the lighting.
And if the performing space hopes to house both theatrical and orchestral performances, such as at American River College, there are even more demands on the project.
At the Benvenuti Center, they built a full “fly tower” behind and above the stage. The intricate system of pulleys and mesh walking grid are designed to raise and lower scenery and lights at different levels and heights.
Most theaters have this kind of giant empty space behind and above the stage, with a narrowing onto the stage itself and then another large empty space in the house or audience. This requires a “transitional space” between the stage and the house, to project the sound not outward.
“You want a lot of hard reflective surfaces right around for sound generation,” said Buck, “ like hands cupping a mouth.” Many theaters use a kind of archway of differing materials.
In order to combat the challenges of projecting sound, the standard design in theaters includes: a hard, reflective surface on and around the stage; non-parallel surfaces for the walls so the sound reflects back and forth; and absorbability in the back wall to stop it from reflecting back into the audience. It’s a balance between hard, reflective materials and soft, absorbent materials.
Don’t Disturb the Neighbors
At the American River College theater, the difference between music and theater performances added a level of difficulty in sculpting and sound absorption.
So, for “tunability”, HGA Architects, which did the $10.2 million renovation, included panels that are reflective on one side and absorptive on the other. These panels are hinged and can be flipped around to accommodate different performances. They extend 10 feet high, and above them the walls are covered with a heavy velour muffling curtain that can be retracted to expose the reflective wall.
“We provided a lot of different maneuverable pieces to allow transformation,” said Creed Campba of HGA, the project’s lead designer.
The other sound consideration is isolation. Not only does the sound need to reflect correctly, but it also needs to stay in the space and neither disturb the neighbors nor be disturbed by them.
To do this, most theaters use an “egg in the box” design, with empty spaces surrounding the performance area, which is often lined with concrete and double block walls.
At the Saint Francis High School, which Buck also worked on, the performing building was able to house a theater, library, art classroom, music classroom and general classroom space without sound interference between the different rooms.
At the Natomas Charter School and the American River College, the spaces are intended for educational purposes, so students can learn the ins and outs of theater. The American River space, which had not been renovated since it was built in 1958, includes the capacity to have everything wired back to recording studios so that students can learn from the performances.
“They want to prepare students,” Campba said. “It’s a good asset to the educational program.”
Room to Grow
Some of the other new theater buildings and renovations in the area are the result of space constraints.
The new Children’s Theater of California Complex is a project primarily of the B Street that partners with the City of Sacramento, Sutter Medical Center and the neighborhood groups.
“We’re out of room,” said Bill Blake, the Managing Director of B Street Theater. “We’re sold out of subscriptions. Doing the maximum number of performances and productions. We’re turning thousands of people away every year.”
The new theater at 27th and Capitol Avenue is in the planning stages with a group of architects based out of Portland, Ore. It’s set to be finished by the end of 2010.
“The goal is to have a building that integrates with the surroundings of midtown,” said Blake.
California Musical Theater, which operates primarily out of the Wells Fargo Pavilion, is also looking to expand its reach with a cabaret style theater in the old Woolworth building on K Street. The building was developed by David Taylor Interests and will include a New York style deli, a nightclub/lounge, office space and the cabaret theater.
The problem, of course, is that an old department store is not quite the same as a new theater.
“We wanted to respect the old building, but also open it up,” said Sonia Malhorta, of WRNF Studio, one of the architects on the project.
They aimed to keep the exterior of the building, but were forced to confront the two biggest problems: existing concrete columns that were spaced oddly and a limited floor-to-floor height.
“You have a whole lot of conditions that are handed to you,” said Bob Mahoney of Robert F. Mahoney and Associates.
Mahoney was the theater and acoustical consultant for California Musical Theater on this project, as well as on the Wells Fargo Pavilion.
But Mahoney conceded that while the Woolworth building was a challenge, most existing buildings do not easily accommodate a theater.
For the cabaret theater, panels called “tee-stems” were installed in between the concrete vertical shafts to stop noise from getting trapped up in the empty space.
The sound isolation was the biggest problem, however, with a nightclub going in above and a parking garage below. There just wasn’t enough room to implement the traditional “box inside a box” form of sound insulation.
Instead, they attempted to create “partial boxes and disconnect parts of the building”.
The walls look like one wall but function like two. Each wall has two sets of studs with a gypsum board attached to only one side of each. It’s “two half walls” Mahoney said.
Most of these walls retain their original concrete appearance.
“Not going to pretend,” Malhorta said, “but celebrate what the building is.”