(Bethel, NY) – Curtain Call is a winning design for the 2024 edition of BuildFest at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Each year, BuildFest selects teams of university faculty to design and construct large-scale art installations on the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock festival. This year’s theme challenged participants to explore the intersection of digital and physical construction methods. By embracing Human-Robot Collaborative Construction (HRCC) techniques, Curtain Call breaks from conventional modes of design and fabrication to develop a pavilion that references the tectonics of the Woodstock ‘69 stage.

Designed as a new type of performance infrastructure for the site, Curtain Call creates a flexible stage to accommodate a wide range of organized and impromptu activities. The playful arrangement of an open-air deck, asymmetrical columns, and a mesh-wrapped roof structure provides many possibilities for adaptation. The pavilion can accommodate performances, movie nights, pop-up events, or serve as a relaxing spot for visitors to lounge, picnic, or read a book under the shade.

The project references the wood trusses and fabric canopy from the original Woodstock stage and reinterprets them to create a new performance structure. A series of fifteen unique trusses form a dynamic roof, which is wrapped in a red lightweight mesh that shifts in form and color throughout the day in response to wind and light conditions. Connecting the roof to the deck, twenty-six columns are asymmetrically organized to create a series of small, medium, and large spaces to support different programming and stage orientations.

The shifting relationship between the deck, columns, and roof structure is made possible through the integration of computational design tools and structural optimization techniques. Each truss was locally optimized in design to accommodate dynamic load conditions, reduce material waste, and minimize tension and compression forces. Members of the deck, trusses, and columns were locally reinforced to provide additional support where loads are transferred. By embracing these nuances, the structural requirements become legible in the design and articulation of each part.

Curtain Call integrates Human-Robot Collaborative Construction (HRCC) techniques, allowing for a balance of digital precision and physical craft. "As opposed to fully robotic processes, we became excited and interested in this hybrid approach – the space in between where digital precision and physical craft allow for new material, tectonic, and formal expressions,” said Young. This approach enabled the creation of a custom, non-repetitive structure that could be fabricated quickly and efficiently. A low-cost timber marking robot was developed to directly embed fabrication and assembly information on each wood member. The robot uses a marker to inscribe information such as cut angles, drill locations, alignments, and unique identification tags directly onto the material.

These instructions allow people of all skill levels to easily understand, fabricate, and assemble each part. “The method we developed allowed materials to act as both a fabrication and assembly guide, eliminating the need for elaborate construction documents and complex on-site coordination,” McCarthy said. Over the course of four weeks before the festival, all materials were marked, processed, and pre-assembled before being shipped to Bethel, NY. During the five-day live-work festival, faculty and student teams worked to assemble and install the pavilions.

Curtain Call will be open to the public at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts through the Fall of 2027.

Design Team
office office (Cait McCarthy, Jordan Young)

Fabrication Team
Jordan Young, Cait McCarthy, Emily Herr, Miles Smith

Construction Consultant
Lawson Spencer

Assembly Team
Cait McCarthy, Jordan Young, Christopher Battaglia, Helen Bennett, Micah Betz, Maddie Brockman, Cayden Brown, Patrick Fair, Varun Gandhi, Jacob Taro Gibbons, Sam Glenn, Emily Herr, Gretchen Hundertmark, Sanskruti Kakadiya, Ellie Marie Lambert, Andrea F. Olmedillo, Miles Smith, Lawson Spencer, Riley Wines

This project was made possible with the generous support of Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, and Syracuse University School of Architecture.

Photos by Alon Koppel / Esto, Breyden Anderson, Jordan Young, Cait McCarthy, Lawson Spencer