Team Building

by Peter w. Lamb / Auditoria (August 1, 2003)

Legendary singer Tony Bennett has lavished praise on Wisconsin's newest performing arts center, a facility largely financed through community efforts and designed as much for local artists as for touring ensembles

The challenging schedule set for the design and construction of the new Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Appleton, Wisconsin may have helped make it a very successful project. The USD45m facility officially opened on 25 November 2002, just 31 months after breaking ground. What was driving the schedule was an edict from the lead institutional donor, Thrivent Financial (formerly known as Aid Association for Lutherans/Lutheran Brotherhood) that the building had to be ready for their 100th Anniversary Party on 24 November.

Thrivent put up the first USD8m, a move which set the tone for the community-funded project. More than 2,700 local residents and businesses contributed and raised the additional finance. In fact, the entire process of conceiving, designing, funding and building the center was marked by community commitment and involvement. Each participant became committed to the fast-track schedule.

Dr Joel Rubin, vice president and senior consultant at Artec Consultants, says: "The schedule was such that a high level of co-operation was essential. We only had one shot at getting it right and we were committed to getting it right."

Kathi Seifert, the center's board vice president and an executive at Kimberly-Clark, was charged with selecting an architect and approving a design for the facility. Seifert and her committee visited 18 performing arts centers around the country and evaluated five different design proposals before they opted for a design-build approach and assembled the project team.

Architects Zeidler Grinnell Partnership and Artec Consultants were selected to design the facility. Artec provided acoustics, theatre planning and sound and communications design. The two companies partnered on a number of successful performing arts buildings. This experience helped to move the design process along quickly and effectively. Boldt Construction Company was chosen to build the facility.

The result is a stunning facility featuring the 2,100-seat proscenium theatre, Thrivent Financial Hall, and Kimberly-Clark Theatre, a multipurpose "black box" space that can seat up to 400 people. The center is situated on College Avenue in the heart of Appleton's downtown.

Acoustic Solutions

As the designers worked with the steering committee and user groups on the building program, it became clear that the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center would be presenting a very wide range of performances. Symphonic music, recitals, opera, graduation ceremonies, amplified music events as well as touring Broadway shows were planned.

As the presentation of Broadway shows would occupy a significant place in the scheduling of the main hall, one of the principal aims was to design a very intimate space, with all of the audience members being as close to the stage as possible. No seat in the Thrivent Financial Hall was to be more than 108ft away from the stage edge. The design team achieved this goal, with great sightlines.

Environmental and ground-borne noise and vibration created a number of additional challenges for the acousticians at Artec.

The site chosen for the complex in downtown Appleton was at the busy intersection of College Avenue and Division Street and adjacent to the Wisconsin Central Railway line, a busy freight way with an unpredictable schedule. In order to achieve the isolation that was necessary for intimate performances, a solution to the noise problem had to be found.

Artec sought the advice of Wilson Ihrig Associates, experts in ground-borne noise isolation. Rubin explains: "A very cost-effective solution was found. Boldt Construction was prepared to pour a prodigious amount of concrete to solve the problem."

A "bathtub" was poured with 3ft-thick mats. The building rests on six of these mats placed at different elevations. Below-grade concrete walls were poured, which were 24in thick. Exterior walls are 16in of solid concrete with an additional 6in of concrete block, making for very effective airborne noise control.

In total, Boldt Construction poured more than 20,000 cubic yards of concrete.

Air-handling units, transformers and other noisy equipment were strategically installed outside the performance space structural zones. Lined and silenced ductwork was carefully designed for minimum noise. In addition, a high-volume, low-velocity air system was specified for the main hall. Air is delivered via cylindrical vents in the seat pedestals, through the floor from a huge lined air plenum beneath the auditorium. All entrances to the theatres are via "sound and light locks". A single acoustic joint between the two performance spaces and the careful attention to all sources of noise intrusion has resulted in two very quiet rooms.

Flexible performance spaces

The decision to include a 400-seat black box performance space came out of the strong belief that the facility must be a community-oriented center and that local arts groups would need a space to create and present work that was of a scale the venue could handle.

The result is the Kimberly-Clark Theatre, a flat-floor room with motorized telescopic seating risers, a surrounding seating gallery and technical gallery and an overhead lighting/rigging grid. Seating is loose, but interlocking armchairs can be configured in any way required. The room has modern lighting and sound systems as well as walk/draw velour drapes on two levels to provide adjustable sound absorption.

With direct access to the loading docks, storage and catering preparation areas, the space can be used for a range of events including plays, small musical ensembles, video/film shows, corporate meetings and banquets. The room is equipped with a control room for lighting and sound and is complemented by control-point access on floor and gallery levels to make for a completely flexible space.

Thrivent Financial Hall, meanwhile, would have very diverse programmatic needs, if it were to be a community performing arts space and still have the ability to stage the most sophisticated touring Broadway shows. It would need to provide full orchestral acoustics as home for the Fox Valley Symphony, adapt for smaller musical ensembles, intimate theatre pieces, ballet and opera, as well as sound-reinforced music concerts and stage shows.

The stagehouse is outfitted with a full gridiron and counterweight flying system, four switches for lighting, disconnects for automation/rigging, audio, an adjustable proscenium opening, two-man crew elevator to the gridiron, forestage rigging grid and a three-bay loading dock. Locking rail and pin rail are joined by an upstage crossover catwalk. The fly floor even has a backlit index strip. Connecting hallways flow naturally from the loading docks and are big enough for transportation of scenery to the Kimberly-Clark Theatre. Dressing rooms are situated close to the stage.

Technically speaking

Bill Allison, Artec's senior theatre consultant, says: "You can walk in the stage door at Fox Cities Performing Arts Center blindfolded and find everything. Each feature is where it is supposed to be."

The stagehouse and its environs is a marvel of space and technical amenity planning. It provides for quick, economical set-up for road shows and safe, simple use by local groups.

Elsewhere, the orchestra pit is based on a three-part Gala elevator/forestage extension system. The orchestra can perform 9ft below the stage, at intermediate levels, or the area can be used for seating by bringing the lift to house level. The pit can also be raised to stage level to provide a forestage extension that brings the orchestra into the auditorium. Orchestras also have the advantage of a nine-piece Wenger Diva orchestra shell, five overhead flying ceiling pieces, a fixed forestage canopy, motorized banners and curtains at all levels in the auditorium to tune reverberation. Dedicated orchestra lighting exists in the canopy and stagehouse.

The production lighting system boasts a 288 ETC Sensor dimmer per circuit system, complete with Expression 3 console, remote focus and two Unison control stations to operate house, work, running and cue lights. There is also a good complement of lighting fixtures, DMX nodes and FOH connectivity to meet the demands of every touring show.

Sound and communications is equally well planned and equipped. The house reinforcement system boasts center left and right Turbosound arrays, bass bins, front fills underbalcs, powered by Crown. The system is fronted with a Soundcraft Series 4 with 40 inputs, and good signal processing. Mic/line and communications panels are in all the desired positions. A house mix position with complete connectivity is also provided.

Bright future

The harmony of design between disciplines is evident throughout the building, not just in the technical areas and auditorium.

Seifert envisaged the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center as a gathering place, stating that she wanted a building "that had open arms". To this end, the design team created a welcoming but functional lobby system. The soaring four-level atrium that forms the front of the building is capped with a diagonally carved rotunda.

Gino DeSantis, design architect with Zeidler Grinnell, says: "The lobby space was designed to provide as much glass as possible on the exterior so that whenever there is an event going on inside, everyone knows."

This lobby provides many opportunities for the patron to see and be seen, with tiers that overlook one another. One has a great sense of occasion upon entering this facility. The lobby is also a very functional performance and banquet space with almost 10,000ft2 on two levels. It is technically well equipped, too, with complete communications systems, latecomer video and ample power for events.

It has taken less than three years to program, design and build a theatre complex that would normally take around six years to complete. Appleton and the Fox Cities area now finds itself with a world-class facility.

The enthusiasm and commitment of the local residents, community and corporate leaders and the design professionals made it all happen in time for Thrivent Financial's key date, 24 November 2002. Legendary singer Tony Bennett performed the inaugural concert, a private affair for Thrivent's employees. He paid the designers and acousticians the ultimate compliment by having his sound system turned off, both during the sound check and the concert, "…to feel this room's great sound". Bennett then played again the following evening at an opening gala benefit for the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center campaign. He then vowed to return, saying: "It was an honor and an unforgettable experience to be the first to play in a hall built in the tradition of real theatres rather than the filing cabinets that are so often built."

In the end, Fox Cities Performing Arts Center became exactly what was intended by the founding board of directors - a home base for local arts groups to present their work in a professionally run venue and a center that would attract the finest touring performing artists and events.