Sunday, November 09, 2008
‘Ideal’ Theatre Goal of Architecture Competition
Sightlines: "Teams of theatre students and their architectural counterparts are being challenged to design the Ideal Theatre as part of the third annual design competition created by USITT’s Architecture Commission, supported for 2009 by Serapid, Inc. and Boldt Construction, and managed by HGA Architects."
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13 comments:
This would be an absolutely fun project. We have grads here that have experience with facilities management and did their undergrad as architecture students. This is a project that would be really worth while because of the shear scale of if all. It's the ultimate in collaboration in having to work with the different departments to really understand what everyone needs from a performance space.
This sounds like a great opportunity to collaborate with the school of architecture here. This would allow the theater students to evaluate what needs we have as a "client" based on good and bad past experiences and our ideal working situations. It's also a good practical project for all involved. I doubt anything could be arranged this year, but it seems like it would be a good class collaboration project, especially at a university with good drama and architecture programs.
I can't think of a single time where I have been in a theatre where someone hasn't mentioned a wishful architectural change. This would be an excellent opportunity for us at CMU with such an amazing facility that still has some faults. There is also an awesome architectural school right across campus, now if only they had some time available which is always the issue with fun side projects.
I think this is such a cool project, to get teams together and design the perfect theatre. As theatre designers and technicians we will always find different things that are "wrong" or could be better in a theatre space. A lot of these issues are tradeoffs for getting another desired feature in a theatre. Though I believe that this could be a very interesting colaboration with the school of architecture as well as other drama departments to see what is actually most highly valued in a theatre and how to get those results.
This looks like so much fun, and it would be a great opportunity for people to collaborate with the school of architecture! What a great idea from the folks of USITT. There have been times in every space I've worked in which I wanted some sort of change to a stupid architectural decision. It would be a great opportunity to look into the tradeoffs of functionality vs aesthetic choices in the creation of a theatre space. Very cool!
This project is an excellent interdisciplinary exercise and a perfect project for CMU students. It would be interesting to see the product of the collaborative work of architects and designers.
It's hard to be able to come up with the ideal theatre space without making it extremely versatile. Upon first coming to this school, I would think of the Chosky as an ideal theatre space because it is so large and has a natural look to it, but I have discovered that a number of shows have not worked in this type of space. Hopefully, these students will look past the proscenium design and come up with something that can work for both large and small scale shows, which would be ideal for me.
sounds like an ambitious project, to crate the "Perfect" theater. I know we all have our own personal preferences when it comes to the way a space should be oriented. i am curious to see what major problems they tackle in this project. In the end the space still has to be able to accommodate a performance and should still be able to change and be manipulated for various types of performances.
The idea of the perfect theatre -- an experiment in theatrical utopia --- is a really exciting prospect. I really respect the idea of pooling many skill sets in collaboration across curriculum and disciplines.
I also think this would be a very valuable and, dare I say, 'pedagogical' project to do here, and I think it could work. After all, the lighting students collaborated with the Architectural lighting students on Master Plan of Light. I do think that the "ideal" theatre is an enormous fantasy. Seeing that everyone has different interests and opinions, and taking into account the number of different people who need to be pleased in such an endeavor, I think that creating the "ideal" theatre is impossible. You could make a pretty darn good one, though.
Though this sounds like a really cool and fun project, I don't think you can design the 'Ideal' Theatre. Different spaces lend themselves to different types of plays. I think this contest would be a little more interesting if a specific show, or type of show, was given as one of the parameters.
I love that they are doing this. so many times there have been theaters that were poorly designed for their purpose. This would ensure not only for a better production, but also to make the job of the production team just that much easier.
This is a great idea. The balance that must be struck between functionality and aesthetics is a very fine line. I have not spoken to a single theatre artist who has worked in a space not not had a single (if not many) complaint(s). Theatre is an art of collaboration… however this collaboration begins even before the theatre is built. If more time was pent in initial theatre design… much less could be spent fixing these flaws for each and every mounted production.
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