Stanford University invited James Carpenter Design Associates to a design charrette for its Frost Amphitheater, built in 1937. The goals were to envision a new canopy to provide shade and protection for 2,500 seated patrons and to renew the stage, back of house, entries and circulation.
JCDA’s approach is founded on preserving the integrity of the site, a six-acre man-made bowl and open air forum with a powerful sense of the sky. A minimal and elegant intervention, the Sky Reflector Canopy, developed with Schlaich Bergermann and Partners, is a lightweight tensile structure with a retracting roof canopy, buoyantly suspended within the site’s topography and natural setting. Matching the site's topography, the uplifting double curved cable-net form welcomes visitors and accentuates the stage as a point of focus. The translucent fabric canopy is deployed along the cable-net’s fanning array of longitudinal cables, providing shelter from sun or rain and enhancing the amphitheater’s existing micro-climate.
When the canopy is retracted, sky reflectors set parallel to the stage become visible above the net’s transverse cables. When viewed from the rear of the amphitheater’s bowl, these arcing linear reflections visually stack together to create a wide periscopic view of the northern sky. As viewers descend toward the stage, the reflectors and structure almost disappear. This powerful poetic light effect, suspended between earth and sky, is in constant dialog with the changing atmospheric conditions of the outdoor environment.
In merging art, engineering and an environmental approach to place making, the Sky Reflector Canopy is an innovative architectural instrument that celebrates this extraordinary site’s character, a site that transforms academic and social rites of passage into experiences vividly remembered by generations of students and alumni.
Client: Stanford University
Engineer: Schlaich Bergermann and Partner
Lighting/Accoustics: ARUP
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