TheatreSquared
TheatreSquared’s new 50,000 SF home unites two state-of-the art theatres, eight artist apartments, a rehearsal space, offices, education and community spaces, on-site workshops, outdoor terraces at three levels, and an always-open café/bar at the active corner of West & Spring Street.
NEW HOME FOR THEATRESQUARED
The new TheatreSquared building in
Fayetteville, Arkansas provides a permanent
home for Northwest Arkansas’s only year-round professional theatre. The theatre
company (commonly known as T2) currently
creates nationally acclaimed productions
that reach 45,000 patrons each year and
has a significant educational outreach
program that gives students across the
region access to live performances and
leading arts-based learning tools.
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE OF
FAYETTEVILLE
The building also plays a significant role
in extending the arts and cultural program
of the city as whole. Situated a block
South of Dickson St, Fayetteville’s main
commercial artery, and in between the
Walton Arts Center and the city public
library, the building pulls the public south
down Fayetteville’s emerging Arts Corridor.
A planned park across the street from the
theatre will replace an existing parking lot
and further energize this portion of the city
allowing the theatre to engage pedestrians
and bikers, families and individuals, and the
youth and adults alike.
COLLABORATIVE DESIGN PROCESS
The design was the result of an intensive
options-based and collaborative process
with the client. Design principles, derived
from the company’s vision statement, were
established early on and carried through
at every stage of design. As an example,
the concept that the performance space is
the “beating heart of the building” resulted
in the concrete envelope of the theatre
being left exposed and visibly expressing
itself on all sides—from the exterior, into
the commons, and into the back-of-house
corridors—letting passersby, patrons, and
actors locate themselves in relation to this
building “heart. ©Timothy Hursley
©Timothy Hurlsey
ARCHITECTURE TELLS A STORY
To further the concept of theatres as a place
for storytelling, the materials used also tell
stories. The various lives that wood may
possess—as a raw material, a concrete
texture, charred, stained, veneered as
plywood, chopped into OSB, as furniture,
or walls, or floors—all appear within the
building. A story of construction processes
is also told—the pine boards used to make
the board form concrete envelopes were
cleaned, stained, and repurposed as interior
finish materials in the Studio and Rehearsal
performance spaces.
©Greg Maka
LOCAL MATERIALS AND DETAILS
Furniture was constructed out of trees
felled from the site, local Ozark boulders
were embedded into the landscaping, and
local pine used to make the board form
concrete walls was recycled and used as an
interior finish. ©Greg Maka
LIVING ROOM FOR THE COMMUNITY
The building “commons”—the space at the
corner of the building that links the three
performing venues and that faces this future
park—opens to the street and invites the
public in, serving as a kind of living room
for the city. At the core of TheatreSquared’s
ethos is the outlook that theatre ought to
be enjoyed by everyone. Frequent public
programming within the Commons, and
a café set to be open daily is intended to
broaden the theatre-going audience and
entice both residents and visitors to make
the space their home. ©Greg Maka
Performance capabilities extend out of
the theatres and into the commons with
audiovisual and stage lighting systems
integrated into the public spaces increasing
both performance flexibility as well as
the client’s ability to draw the public in.
Low-iron glass surrounds the Commons, increasing transparency and connectivity
to the street. Exposed structural steel and
building systems lay bare the workings of
the building and encourage the perception
of the space as approachable and
unpretentious. ©Greg Maka
MAIN AND STUDIO THEATRES
MAIN AND STUDIO THEATRES
We created a state-of-the-art mainstage
and studio theatres capable of mounting
complex, technically-challenging
productions situated within acoustically
soundproofed envelopes, a crucial
consideration taking into account the
nearby active railroad tracks. ©Timothy Hursley
©Greg Maka
MAIN AND STUDIO THEATRES
TheatreSquared’s previous venue was
abnormally wide and shallow resulting
in elaborate and extensive stage sets
and a simultaneous intimate audience
experience. This extra-wide stage shape was
replicated in the new main theatre while
the audience capacity was dramatically
increased by adding a wrap around, two
row deep, balcony level while the back
row of the orchestra level became only
one row deeper than it was in the original
space. Audience members enter at the
stage level, the same level as the actors—another experiential element that was
preserved—further heightening the up-close
and personal theatre experience that has
become a hallmark of TheatreSquared’s
performances. ©Timothy Hursley
A WORKING BUILDING
The Rehearsal Room, a space which can
be flexibly used as an event space as well,
projects over the northwest corner of the
building. Clad in charred wood with a big
picture window that looks north towards
the downtown, the inner workings of the
building, and the process of mounting a
show, are put on display for all to see. The
eastern spine of the building houses the
guts of T2’s operational needs including
staff offices, dressing rooms, a wardrobe
shop, scene and prop shops, and a green
room. ©Greg Maka
A WORKING BUILDING
Interaction between T2 staff, actors and
the public is encouraged with rooms such
as the green room and scene shop having
views into each other and all rooms having
windows to the outside. Industrial materials
such as plywood and OSB clad back of house corridors, dressing rooms, and offices
increasing the durability of the wall surfaces
while encouraging the perception of the
spaces as places to be used and lived in—a
working theatre. ©Timothy Hursley
©Timothy Hursley
- Location
- Fayetteville, Arkansas
- Client
- TheatreSquared (Owner)
- Typology
- Cultural, Public
- Size
- 45,480 GSF (Theatre Building) 3,464 GSF (Residential Building) 50,00 GSF (Total) SF
- Design Team
- Jonathan Marvel, Lissa So, Zachary Griffin, Ariel Poliner, Bell Ying Cai, Siyuan Ye, Enrique Ramon, Mabel Plasencia
- Consultants
- Silman (Structural Engineers) Buro Happold (MEP Engineers) Charcoalblue (theater design, stage lighting, stage engineering, acoustics, av) McClelland Engineers (Site/Civil) Jim Conti (Architectural Lighting) Code Consultants Professional Engineers (Code Consultants) Dharam Consulting (Cost Estimation) Baldwin & Shell (Construction Manager)
- Awards
- Regional Impact Award for Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce , The Chicago Athenaeum: American Architecture Award, Interior Design Magazine Best of Year Honoree in Entertainment Category, AIA New York State Design Award: Institutional Category, CAAPPR XV Biennial of Architecture - Honorable Mention Built Category, The Chicago Athenaeum: International Architecture Award, AIA New York Merit Award, 2023 USITT Honor Award
- Photography Credits
- ©Greg Maka, ©Timothy Hurlsey
