Created as a new home for an African-American theater company located on the North side of Chicago for over 40 years, the project includes a 300 seat thrust theater with balcony, lobbies, dressing rooms, scene shop, costume shop, offices, outreach classrooms, rehearsal space and technical infrastructure to support a nationally renowned professional theater company. The newly constructed theater and lobby building adjoins an existing two-story garage where parking was preserved on the ground floor and conventional height spaces such as offices, costume shop, dressing rooms and musicians’ spaces were created on the fully renovated second floor. The exterior of the building combines concrete, ipe wood, cement panels and glass curtain wall. The lobby stair element sweeps upward and toward the street becoming a canopy that supports a uniquely stacked, deconstructed sign, then continues to become an upturned blank replica of a traditional blade sign. By locating the HVAC units on the roof of the existing building, the gap between the two buildings creates an acoustical isolation joint keeping intrusive noise and vibration out of the theater. In the theater, appropriate finishes, diffusive elements, bass traps and adequate room volume help accommodate the Company’s energetic music style while maintaining vocal clarity.
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