Robin Williams Center for Media and Entertainment

Robin Williams Center For Media And Entertainment

Situated directly across the street from the Roundabout Theater Company/Studio 54, the 4,000-square-foot, 25-foot-high facility houses a state-of-the-art screening room with cinema-style seating, green room and lobby, and is also home to workshops, seminars, and free professional programs for New York union performers.

The multifunctional facility is the second and final phase of the SAG Foundation’s New York Actors Center. That space, located at 1900 Broadway, opened in May 2014 and features a computer lab, voice-over lab and recording facility that includes a main recording booth with an attached classroom and solo booth.

Project Details

Client: Screen Actors Guild Foundation
Architect: Rogers Partners Architects+Urban Designers
Completion Year: 2016
Location: New York, New York
Building Size: 4,000 s.f.
Capacity: 154 seats

National Music Centre | Studio Bell

National Music Centre of Canada, Studio Bell

The National Music Center of Canada is an entirely new cultural institution dedicated to the music of Canada in all of its forms. It is at once museum, performance hall, interactive music education center, recording studio, broadcast center, and exhibition of the Cantos Music Foundation’s growing collection. Sited opposite the Stampede Grounds in Calgary’s historic East Village, the new NMC, along with the restored King Edward Hotel, revitalizes the district. The project marks the first stage of a new music district in the historic heart of the city.

The first floor houses a live performance venue, called Canada Music Square, along with interactive displays that provide an overview of the centre.

The second storey houses the main performance hall, which overlooks the lobby and serves as the building’s programmatic and structural center. With flexible seating and a movable acoustic wall, the concert hall can be closed for intimate performances and be fully opened to the lobby and circulation spaces, filling them with music.

Project Details

Client: Cantos Foundation
Architect: Allied Works Architects
Completion Year: 2016
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Capacity: 300 seats

National Museum of African American History and Culture

Occupying the last available space on the National Mall, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture is situated prominently between the National Museum of American History and 15th Street, next to the Washington Monument. When it opens to the public in 2016, the museum will be a centerpiece venue for ceremonies and performances, as well as a primary exhibition space for African American history and culture.

FDA is responsible for the planning and design of a 370-seat auditorium for NMAAHC. Conceived as a true multipurpose room, the theatre features motorized rigging, variable acoustics banners, and a complete inventory of LED theatrical lighting fixtures on automated lighting battens.

After Oprah gave an extraordinary gift to the NMAAHC’s capital campaign in 2013, the Smithsonian Institution announced that it would name the room the Oprah Winfrey Theatre.

Project Details

Client: The Smithsonian Institution
Architect: Freelon Adjaye Bond / SmithGroup
Completion Year: 2016
Location: Washington, Dist of Columbia
Lighting: Fisher Marantz Stone
Acoustician: SMW
Capacity: 370 seats

Awards

Gold MUSE Award For Interactive Exhibits
LEED Gold certification in progress

Articles

Media

Public Hotel Arts Club

Photo Credit: Public Hotel

The Public Hotel builds on Ian Schrager’s Studio 54 of forty years ago, a nighttime renaissance, and a cultural, social, event and party machine. Public Arts is a cutting-edge, progressive and avant-garde multi-media performance space like no other. A new dimension and home to adventurous artists, ideas and people, the space will offer the most innovative programming including everything from film screenings to musical performances, rotating art exhibitions to product launches, open mic night to comedy night, as well as late night hot sweaty dancing!

Project Details

Client: Ian Schrager
Architect: Bonetti/Kozerski Studio
Completion Year: 2017
Location: New York, New York
Capacity: 84 seats

Media

Patti Smith Finale at PUBLIC Hotel NYC opening night party

The Anthem

A remarkable transformation is taking shape in Washington, D.C. Stretching across 27 acres, the Wharf will revitalize the Southwest waterfront into a vibrant, mixed-use community. This new neighborhood will incorporate shops and restaurants with residences, a hotel, cultural attractions, marinas, and parks. The maritime heritage of the waterfront will be celebrated through the preservation of existing resources and the reactivation of the water’s edge.

A major attraction is the new 6,000-seat concert and event hall operated by the legendary 9:30 Club. FDA worked with Perkins+Will DC and Rockwell Group to design a flexible seating arrangement for both seated and standing events. A motorized stage and overhead can shift 30′ into the hall for more intimate events. 3D models were used throughout the design process to study sightlines and coordination with AV equipment. FDA also provided services for backstage planning, and theatrical lighting and rigging specification.

Project Details

Client: 9:30 Club
Architect: Rockwell Group
Arch. of Record: Perkins+Will DC
Completion Year: 2017
Location: Washington, Dist of Columbia
Building Size: 57,000 s.f.
Capacity: 6,000 seats

Duke Ellington School of the Arts

The design finds the balance between restoring and respecting the historic fabric while creating major new academic and performance venues, expanding the complex. The “Arts Machine” design sought to express and expose what goes on inside, promoting interdepartmental awareness and collaboration, and inviting the neighborhood in to experience the fruits of its diverse pre-professional programs. The academic and performance environment revolves around a four-story atrium, with the new iconic 800-seat Duke Ellington Theater “egg” suspended in the middle as the institution’s metaphoric heart. New construction is woven in and around the restored historic building fabric to accommodate the large studios, performance and rehearsal spaces, which are complimented by exterior elements such as the outdoor Plaza placed at the top of the gently sloping front lawn, the Media Reading Room Terrace sheltered under the grand two-story portico and the Education Terrace on the Ellington Theater Roof with its spectacular views across the city, all contribute to its expression of revitalization.

Project Details

Client: Duke Ellington School of the Arts
Architect: Cox Graae + Spack Architects
Completion Year: 2018
Location: Washington, Dist of Columbia
Building Size: 265,000 s.f.
Capacity: 800 seats

The Hayes Theater

Helen Hayes Theater (The Hayes Theater)

In 1979, Second Stage launched with the mission of producing “second stagings” of contemporary American plays that deserved to reach a wider audience. For 38 years, they’ve received 180 award nominations, produced three Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, and transferred nine productions to Broadway. Now, with the $64M acquisition and renovation of the historic Helen Hayes Theater, they’ve expanded their campus from two stages to three, broadening their impact on our artists and audiences, and creating a much-needed Broadway home for new American plays and diverse voices.

With its unusual Neo-Georgian design, the Hayes is a striking presence on 44th Street. The entire building has been modernized to create a more welcoming environment with a new cafe lounge, a space for hosting readings, expanded dressing rooms for the artists, nearly double the number of restrooms, a new wheelchair-friendly box office, a full-service elevator, and new seating options throughout the auditorium. For the first time in the building’s history, mobility-impaired guests will have the same freedom of movement and choice of seats as everyone else. The renovation is designed to achieve LEED silver certification.

Project Details

Client: Second Stage
Architect: Rockwell Group
Completion Year: 2018
Location: New York, New York
Lighting: Focus Lighting
Acoustician: Jaffe Holden
Capacity: 597 seats

The Muny

Founded in 1918, The Muny’s mission is to enrich lives by producing exceptional musical theater, accessible to all, serving the entire St. Louis community. The nation’s largest outdoor musical theater company produces seven world-class musicals each year and welcomes over 350,000 theatergoers over a nine-week season.

In anticipation of the Muny’s 100th anniversary season in Forest Park, Fisher Dachs Associates was retained to provide conceptual designs and associated budget estimates for improvements that would serve as the basis for a capital campaign. After multiple visits to assess the facility, FDA provided a prioritized list of projects targeted for the anniversary season capital campaign, as well as for long-term planning and fundraising.

Following this study, FDA remained on board for the design and construction of a new stage and support space. Improved technical accommodations include state-of-the-art lighting and audiovisual systems, multiple LED screens, and a new, automated stage with a turntable, scenery wagons, and performer lifts. The 180-foot long, structurally questionable, lighting suspension bridge from the 1930s was replaced with a much safer, more flexible spanning truss bridge. New support spaces include a climate-controlled orchestra pit and a donor lounge.

Project Details

Client: Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis
Architect: H3
Completion Year: 2018
Location: Saint Louis, Missouri
Capacity: 11,000 seats

Royal Academy of Music

FDA collaborated with Ian Ritchie Architects on this major overhaul of the 1970s auditorium, which has become the Susie Sainsbury Theatre. The works completed revised the geometry of the auditorium significantly, added a balcony, increased the seating capacity to 300, and improved the ambiance of the auditorium. Production capacity was greatly increased with a larger orchestra pit, increased wingspace, and added a new flytower, fitted with a motorized flying system. These improvements will allow the academy’s students to perform larger operas and musicals than previously, and expand the curriculum and instruction the Academy can offer.

“The spaces are stunningly beautiful, acoustically brilliant, and inspiring. They will raise the bar and challenge the students and staff in every possible form of music to reach higher and search further.”
— Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal, Royal Academy of Music

Project Details

Client: Royal Academy of Music
Architect: Ian Ritchie Architects
Completion Year: 2018
Location: London, United Kingdom
Acoustician: ARUP
Capacity: 309 seats

Awards

RIBA London Award 2018
RIBA London Building of the Year 2018

University of Wisconsin at Madison, Hamel Music Center

University of Wisconsin at Madison
Hamel Music Center

Hamel School of Music, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Hamel School of Music, University of Wisconsin – Madison Exterior

A highly competitive RFP process led the State of Wisconsin and the leadership at the University of Wisconsin Madison’s music school to select Steinberg Hart (formerly Holzman Moss Bottino Architecture) and Fisher Dachs Associates to design a new 57,000sf, $50M music performance building. Through a series of visioning sessions, programming workshops, predesign charrettes, informational presentations and guided tours of performing arts centers around the country, the pre-design process included over 100 stakeholders, performers, and community participants. The program and planning culminated in a three-story building featuring an 661-seat concert hall, a 314-seat recital hall, and related support spaces. The facility is used for approximately 350 events annually performed by faculty, students, and touring guests. The concert and recital halls accommodate symphonies and chamber orchestras, solos, quartets and choral concerts. The Hamel School of Music allows UW Madison’s students to rise to their professional potential while in an undergraduate setting.

Project Details

Client: University of Wisconsin
Architect: Steinberg Hart
Arch. of Record: Strang
Acoustician: TALASKE
Completion Year: 2020
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
Building Size: 57,000 s.f.
Capacity: 661-seat concert hall; 314-seat recital hall

Related Projects

University of Wisconsin at Madison, Hamel Music Center

University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, Weidner Center for the Performing Arts

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