Tianjin Juilliard School

Tianjin Juilliard School

Photo Credit: Zhang Chao


FDA again partnered with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the same firm responsible for the 2009 expansion of The Juilliard School’s iconic New York home, to design the school’s first overseas campus — a significant milestone for the institution. As the branch campus of The Juilliard School, The Tianjin Juilliard School is a new cultural institution that brings Juilliard’s artistic and educational mission to a wider global audience. The campus is a center for performance, practice, research, and interactive exhibitions, with communal spaces that are designed to welcome the public into the creative process and performance of music.

As many as 150 performances every year will be presented in the 690-seat concert hall (including 80 balcony seats), 299-seat recital hall, and 225-seat black box theater. These three state-of-the-art performing venues form the cornerstones of the new campus building. The concert hall is the institution’s primary performance facility and features mechanized wood stage risers that can transform the stage into various configurations. Surround-configuration allows for a more intimate relationship between the audience and performers. The recital hall is the acoustic workhorse of the school with nearly continuous use for student and faculty recitals. The black box theater has been designed for multi-media performances as well as recitals, small ensembles and chamber opera, and dance events. The theater features telescopic seating and an overhead wire rope grid that allows for flexible audience and lighting configurations.

The teaching spaces include 12 classrooms, 23 private teaching studios, and 86 practice rooms. There are rehearsal halls for large symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles, a percussion suite, double-reed rooms, a music library, administrative offices, public amenities, and ample spaces designated for electronic composition, recording, and video editing.

  • Client: Juilliard School

  • Location: Tianjin, China

  • Completion Year: 2020
  • Size: 350,000 sq. ft.
  • Architect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro

  • Acoustician: Jaffe Holden

  • Lighting: Tillotson Design Associates
  • AV/IT: Shen Milsom Wilke

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Arts Commons Transformation

Arts Commons Transformation (ACT)

Renders provided by CMLC


Located in the heart of Calgary’s Cultural District in the downtown core, Arts Commons occupies a full city block and is home to six resident companies: Arts Commons Presents, Alberta Theatre Projects, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Downstage, One Yellow Rabbit, and Theatre Calgary. Arts Commons also houses rehearsal spaces, a costume and set construction shop, administrative offices, meeting rooms, a café, and the centralized Arts Commons Box Office. Each year, the center hosts more than 1,800 performances and events.

The first phase of the $660M transformation project will add a new building with a 1,000-seat theatre and 200-seat studio theatre to the Arts Commons campus.

The expansion’s dynamic design was supported by specialists in theatre planning and acoustic design to ensure the new theatre spaces exceed best-in-class technical requirements. The 1,000-seat theatre has the capacity to alter the floor layout to several unique configurations to accommodate the broadest variety of productions, and the 200-seat studio theatre’s design will enable multiple configurations with retractable and demountable platform seating and an opening out to the plaza.

“Through their collective experience, local knowledge and proven expertise in major arts and theatre projects, the team has delivered a truly inspiring design—a spectacular three-level building with 162,000 sq ft of modern features and amenities that will elevate Calgary’s growing arts community.”
– Kate Thompson, President & CEO of CMLC, development manager

“The transformation of the Arts Commons campus is a more than half-billion-dollar investment in Calgary’s arts and cultural future,” says Kate Thompson, President & CEO of CMLC, development manager for the expansion and modernization of Calgary’s premier performing arts centre. “Together with our partners at The City of Calgary and Arts Commons, CMLC has been working with the prime design team since early 2022 to advance the concept and schematic designs for this extraordinary city-building project. Today we’re ecstatic to reach a monumental milestone: the public unveiling of the new building’s design.”

The expansion building’s curved form, exterior cladding, and interior finishes are inspired by Alberta’s dramatic landscapes and the regional lodge With a naturally lit, fully transparent ground floor, the design team placed importance on the southeast corner where a gathering circle with a skylight provides space that welcomes Calgarians and encourages visitors to come together and share stories.

The design team also includes an accessibility consultant, ensuring the spaces are inclusive and accessible for The main floor entry and both stages are set flush to the adjacent pedestrian realm to allow for barrier free access to the performance spaces, and boast theatre seating at all levels and multiple central elevators.


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  • Client: Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC)
  • Architect: KPMB Architects (Prime Design)
  • Architect: Hindle Architects (Design Consultant)
  • Architect: Tawaw Architecture Collective (Design Consultant)
  • Construction Management: EllisDon
  • Project Management: Colliers Project Leaders
  • Acoustic Consultant: Threshold Acoustics
  • Structural Engineer & Building Condition Assessment: Entuitive
  • Mechanical Engineer: Reinbold/Altieri Sebor Wieber
  • Electrical Engineer: Crossey Engineering (a Salas O’Brien Company) and DesignCore
  • Arts Management Consultant: AMS Planning and Research
  • Cost Consultant: Venue Consulting and A.W. Hooker Associates
  • Accessibility Consultant: Venue Consulting and A.W. Hooker Associates
  • Completion Year: 2028/2029
  • Location: Calgary, Alberta; Canada
  • Building Size: 162,000 SF
  • Size:
    • 1,000-seat theatre
    • 200- seat studio theatre

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Park Avenue Armory | Wade Thompson Drill Hall

Park Avenue Armory | Wade Thompson Drill Hall


The Park Avenue Armory, which has been called “the single most important collection of 19th century interiors to survive intact in one building” by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, contains interiors designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Stanford White, the Herter Brothers and other prominent artists at the turn of the century. Built for New York State’s prestigious Seventh Regiment between 1877 and 1881, the soaring 55,000 square foot Drill Hall remains one of the largest unobstructed spaces of its kind in New York.

Joining a host of unconventional spaces around the world (many in converted industrial, transport or military buildings), the Armory fills a crucial niche in the cultural landscape of New York, catalyzing and attracting works of art that cannot be realized at existing venues elsewhere.

FDA was engaged to design a new event infrastructure for the Head House and the Drill Hall, including overhead rigging, lighting, power, and data, and a full inventory of flexible seating and staging systems that can be reconfigured into a broad range of layouts. The revitialized venue will be utilized for conventions and fairs, gala events, performing arts, visual arts, fashion shows, sports events, exhibitions, weddings, concerts, banquets, and conferences.

  • Client: Park Avenue Armory Conservancy
  • Architect:Herzog & de Meuron
  • Arch. of Record: Platt Byard Dovell White
  • Completion Year: 2010
  • Location: New York, New York
  • Lighting: Fisher Marantz Stone Partners
  • Acoustician: Akustiks
  • Capacity: 1,500 seats

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Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York City

For over 30 years, FDA has renovated existing venues on the LCPA campus and designed the newest additions: the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, which allows the Film Society of Lincoln Center to present an even wider range of programming, including films, installations, panels and presentations, as well as performances; the Claire Tow Theater, a black box theatre on the roof of the Vivian Beaumont Theater, a new home for LCT3, the programming initiative devoted to producing the work of emerging playwrights, directors, and designers; and the David Rubenstein Atrium, a vibrant public visitors’ and ticketing facility on Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets. We are currently engaged in the re-imagination of David Geffen Hall, formerly Avery Fisher Hall. The concert hall and all public spaces will be transformed, enhancing the concertgoing experience, fostering a sense of community, and creating bold and innovative ways to connect with the world outside.

The success of the venues we design is evident in our continued engagement with LCPA’s resident companies and our ongoing work – now with the folks at David Geffen Hall.

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Stephen Sondheim Theatre

Stephen Sondheim Theatre

Photo Credit: Cook+Fox Architects


The September opening of the new Henry Miller’s Theater with the Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of Bye Bye Birdie marks a notable occasion for New York City. The 1,055 seat theatre is the first entirely new Broadway theater built in the City in over twenty years.

Designed by Cook+Fox Architects in collaboration with theatre consultants Fisher Dachs Associates, the theatre at 124 West 43rd Street (constructed as a part of the Bank of America Tower at Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street) replaces an earlier theater of that same name on this site. The original had suffered decades of haphazard alterations, neglect, and damage during its years as a discotheque in the 1980’s, and could not be saved. The new space will boast numerous amenities, not least of which is its soon to be status as the first green, LEED- certified Broadway performance space in New York.

In addition to meeting the criteria for LEED Gold certification, the theatre is designed to create the highest quality environment for audiences, performers, and production staff and to be a state-of-the-art performance venue.

  • Client: Durst Organization
  • Architect: Cook + Fox
  • Completion Year: 2009
  • Location: New York, New York
  • Acoustician: Jaffe Holden Acoustics
  • Capacity: 1,045 seats

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Greenhill School | Marshall Family Performing Arts Center

Greenhill School
Marshall Family Performing Arts Center

Photo Credit: ESTO


Named for the Marshall family, the performing arts center creates a new stage for all of the arts and is the focus of the performing arts at the Greenhill School.

The double-height lobby connects all the performance venues and creates a destination for informal performances and spontaneous interaction. The facility includes a 600-seat proscenium theatre, a 150-seat studio theatre, an 80-seat dance and choral hall, a video production and digital media lab, a production studio, two fine arts galleries, an expansive grand lobby, and ancillary teaching and performance spaces. Students’ skills are honed in the learning environments of the theatre spaces, as well as in the classrooms, dressing rooms, costume shop, and scene shop.

  • Client: Greenhill School
  • Architect: Weiss/Manfredi Architects
  • Completion Year: 2016
  • Location: Addison, Texas
  • Acoustician: Jaffe Holden
  • Capacity: 600 seats
  • Building Size: 54,000 s.f.

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Rice University | Moody Center for the Arts

Rice University
Moody Center for the Arts

Photo Credit: Nash Baker Photography & Scott Madaski


The Moody Center for the Arts is a building that serves as an experimental platform for creating and presenting works in all disciplines, a flexible teaching space to encourage new modes of learning, and a forum for creative partnerships with visiting national and international artists. Within the interior landscape of the Moody Center a flexible studio space brings diverse programmatic functions into contact with one another.

The first floor of the Moody Center features the Lois Chiles Studio Theater, a 150-seat Studio Theater for performing arts and its support spaces; the skylit Brown Foundation Gallery and central gallery for exhibitions and experimental performances; two media arts galleries; Creative Open Studio; and an interdisciplinary maker lab that includes a wood shop, metal shop, paint booth, rapid prototyping areas and a student classroom. Outside the Brown Foundation Gallery is an outdoor projection wall.

  • Client: Rice University
  • Architect: Michael Maltzan Architecture
  • Completion Year: 2017
  • Location: Houston, Texas
  • Capacity: 50,000 s.f.

Awards
  • AIA California | Design Honor Award

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Hollywood Bowl

Hollywood Bowl


A world-renowned venue for musical performances originally built in the 1920’s, the Hollywood Bowl is the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Its curvilinear acoustical shell is one of the most recognizeable icons in the world.

After a major revival completed in June, 2004,  the current incarnation integrates the state-of-the-art lighting and sound technology, restoring the shell’s clean ucluttered look.  A larger shell, visually anchored on each side; an adjustable, translucent, fiberglass and aluminum acoustic-reflection canopy, or ‘halo’ – with positions for down, side, back and front lighting; accommodations for up to 200 lighting fixtures – ranging from conventional spotlights to robotics, and a 50-foot turntable all designed by FDA now dramatically improve the Bowl’s function.

Both classical musicians and pop artists using the facility now benefit from 30% more stage space to accommodate a full orchestra as well as stage scenery, lighting and sound technology. The Hollywood Bowl also better accommodates a wider range of leased events. All of this was completed  in the Bowl’s eight-month off-season; the official reopening took place on schedule in June, 2004.

  • Client: Hollywood Bowl PAC, LA Dept of Parks and Recreation
  • Architect: Hodgetts + Fung Design Assoc.
  • Arch. of Record: Gruen Associates
  • Completion Year: 2004
  • Location: Los Angeles, California
  • Acoustician: Jaffe Holden Acoustics
  • Capacity: 18,000 seats

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Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts | David Geffen Hall

Lincoln Center for the Peforming Arts | David Geffen Hall

Photo Credit: Michael Moran


Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic are planning a re-imagination of David Geffen Hall, formerly Avery Fisher Hall. The concert hall and all public spaces will be transformed, enhancing the concertgoing experience, fostering a sense of community, and creating bold and innovative ways to connect with the world outside.

Diamond Schmitt Architects will design the concert hall and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects will design all of the public spaces. The team will create a more intimate venue with state-of-the-art acoustics and flexibility to present orchestra concerts, solo performances, multimedia presentations, and movie screenings. With the new hall at the building’s heart, all public spaces will be reconceived to provide better opportunities for people to gather and connect.

The new hall introduces a “single-room” concept, eliminating the proscenium and moving the stage forward by 25 feet, with audience seating wrapped around it, bringing all seats closer to the performers and providing acoustical and visual intimacy. The new hall’s variable stage configurations are designed to support a wide range of performance initiatives.


Renovations of David Geffen Hall

Avery Fisher Hall – Mostly Mozart Festival ( Completion: 2005)

The temporary transformation for the Mostly Mozart Festival was first unveiled in August 2005 and has been repeated, to critical and popular acclaim, to the present day. A temporary stage installation designed specifically for the Festival places audience members onstage, both on the sides and behind the musicians. The transformation is remarkable. The orchestra has been moved 30′ out into the hall on a platform that extends over what are normally the first eleven rows of seats. Where the stage used to be, and on both sides of the orchestra, there are now 250 seats in tiered rows facing the conductor.

A temporary canopy is suspended above the new orchestra location to provide acoustical reflections to help the musicians hear themselves, and visually reduces the height of the room. A new ring of silk-shaded lighting pendants and a bold red Brazilian bloodwood floor give the stage a warm gentle glow.

Acoustician: Jaffe Holden; Capacity: 2,750 seats

Avery Fisher Stage Renovation ( Completion: 1992)

In the 1991 renovation of the hall, new moveable reflecting surfaces designed as part of a renovation of on-stage acoustics (by Artec) required new stage lighting and rigging systems. To accommodate these new acoustical renovations, FDA redesigned, relocated, and re-installed new stage lighting and rigging systems.

The work was rapidly completed in time for the Philharmonic’s 150th Anniversary concert. Subsequently, the new lighting system was declared a stunning improvement, particularly for the musicians on stage who can now see their music much more effectively and can be seen by the audience in a more appropriate stage lighting environment.

Architect: John Burgee; Arch. of Record: SOM Architects; Acoustician: Artec; Capacity: 2,738 seats

  • Client: Lincoln Center Redevelopment
  • Architect: Diamond Schmitt Architects and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
  • Completion Year: 2022
  • Location: New York, New York
  • Acoustician: Akustiks
  • Capacity: 2,200 seats

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Holland Performing Arts Center

Holland Performing Arts Center


A 2000-seat, modified shoebox style concert hall, a 450-seat recital hall, and an open courtyard are the principal features of the Holland Performing Arts Center. This sumptuous new facility is home to the Omaha Symphony, as well as local, national and international programs, education and outreach activities. The intimate 450-seat chamber music hall is designed to be flexible enough to host banquets and double as rehearsal space.

FDA’s involvement began in the programming phase, where we guided the shape of the room and helped to determine the most efficient back-of-house configuration. We suggested side boxes for visual interest and intimacy, and wrapped seating in one continuous band around the rear of the orchestra, allowing audience members seated behind the stage to watch the conductor and musicians. This configuration also creates a sense of visual unity in the room, something the design team enhanced by introducing natural light through clerestory windows.

While programming the new building for its planned uses, FDA also helped renovate Omaha’s historic 2,600 seat Orpheum Theatre, providing the equipment and other requirements to host Broadway tours and create a significantly improved audience environment.

  • Client: Omaha Performing Arts Society
  • Architect: Polshek & Partners
  • Arch. of Record: HDR
  • Completion Year: 2005
  • Location: Omaha, Nebraska
  • Acoustician: Kirkegaard & Associates
  • Capacity: 2,000 seats

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