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Duane L Jones Recital Hall, SUNY Old Westbury
Duane L Jones Recital Hall, SUNY Old Westbury
Old Westbury, NY, United States
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Other Projects by Think! Architecture + Design
Duane L Jones Recital Hall, SUNY Old Westbury
Old Westbury, NY, United States
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2023
SIZE
5000 sqft - 10,000 sqft
The Duane L. Jones Recital Hall is one of the major performance and presentation venues on the Campus of SUNY College at Old Westbury. At 400 seats the renovated space provides a new home for campus events ranging from dance and theater performance to academic activities such as lectures and various ceremonies.
Designed in 1973, the Old Westbury Recital Hall was part of a brutalist academic “megastructure” that was intended to be the academic and administrative hub of the campus. The Recital Hall itself, as originally designed, was principally a concrete and sheetrock affair that more resembled a mini athletic arena than space for artistic performance. Its questionable aesthetics aside, the space was strangely asymmetrical, creating an out-of-kilter relationship between the audience and performers on stage. Poor acoustics and outdated stage technology also limited the space’s utility.
Think! was tasked with redesigning the space to become the premier event space on campus. Without decreasing the seating count, the Think! design reshaped the space inserting a curving wood wall that improved the focus of the venue towards the stage, reestablished, to the greatest degree possible, the room's symmetry, improved its acoustics to performance standards and created a warm, welcoming and aesthetically unique space within an otherwise severe institutional building.
A new catwalk system, control booth and lighting system were also integrated into the design to provide flexible technical support for a wide range of uses. As well as re-centering the space to create a stronger relationship between performer and audience, a moveable screen enhances the utility of the hall by allowing it to function both as a performance and academic space.
By softening the brutalist design of the existing space through the use of wood paneling, Think! created a warm and inviting performance space from something that had previously been austere. The Recital Hall's presence is further announced by the extension of the design vocabulary into the building lobby.
Designed in 1973, the Old Westbury Recital Hall was part of a brutalist academic “megastructure” that was intended to be the academic and administrative hub of the campus. The Recital Hall itself, as originally designed, was principally a concrete and sheetrock affair that more resembled a mini athletic arena than space for artistic performance. Its questionable aesthetics aside, the space was strangely asymmetrical, creating an out-of-kilter relationship between the audience and performers on stage. Poor acoustics and outdated stage technology also limited the space’s utility.
Think! was tasked with redesigning the space to become the premier event space on campus. Without decreasing the seating count, the Think! design reshaped the space inserting a curving wood wall that improved the focus of the venue towards the stage, reestablished, to the greatest degree possible, the room's symmetry, improved its acoustics to performance standards and created a warm, welcoming and aesthetically unique space within an otherwise severe institutional building.
A new catwalk system, control booth and lighting system were also integrated into the design to provide flexible technical support for a wide range of uses. As well as re-centering the space to create a stronger relationship between performer and audience, a moveable screen enhances the utility of the hall by allowing it to function both as a performance and academic space.
By softening the brutalist design of the existing space through the use of wood paneling, Think! created a warm and inviting performance space from something that had previously been austere. The Recital Hall's presence is further announced by the extension of the design vocabulary into the building lobby.
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