[FULL EPISODE] America ByDesign: Season 3 | Episode 5

This series is about outstanding architecture from around America, from stunning residential to public spaces to commercial. This is an architectural deep dive to uncover the incredible stories behind each design. Welcome to America by Design. Our by design industry experts had selected innovative, inspiring and award-winning projects. I think you know when you're standing in a well-designed space because there's something that is elevated in your spirit. You feel it inside. It's not just you're walking through a space simply for the function. It makes you pause. It makes you feel that there's something special about this moment in this place. Let's get started with our first project. The Palace Theatre in Times Square. Wow, an A-team of rock star architects from P.B.D.W. to Mancini Duffy really rationalized a way to protect the spirit of Broadway and protect it within the confines of all the needs that Times Square requires. New York City's legendary theater district is home to the world's most beloved shows. Architects Mancini Duffy and P.B.D.W. have literally mastered the art of collaboration, bringing the Palace Theatre to dazzling new heights. Hi Bill. Hey Robin, how are you? Good to see you. Thanks so much for having me. Of course, welcome to the lobby of the Palace Theatre in Times Square. My first question, where's the theater? Well, it's actually 30 feet above us right now. What? Correct. I don't understand. Well, this lobby used to be on Times Square. The problem is it was blocking what potentially is some of the best and coolest retail and experience space in the world. The way to access that and unlock it was to take the theater and actually lift it up 30 feet in the air. How the heck did you get a theater up 30 feet in the air? So we actually scooped out a cellar and a subcellar below the theater. We put a ring beam around the entire theater and then we had to carve out space above in which for the theater to go. It just sounds so complex. I mean, how did you get all that accomplished? Well, the biggest challenge is it had never been done before, so we couldn't just call the last people that did this. There's no like theater lifting guy that you can call? No, this whole project, everything was invented. So we had an incredible team of people, starting with Severud, the structural engineer, who did an amazing job of coordinating all these things and coming up with this, all the way to the carpets for Shaw Contract Hospitality. So Lisa, the Palace Theater is really quite famous. It's actually the most famous out of all of the Broadway theaters. Going way back to 1913, everybody wanted to play at the Palace. We started out as vaudeville, moved to movies, and back to live performance. And then in 1965, the Nederland organization purchased the theater and converted it into a legitimate Broadway house. Such incredible powerhouses throughout history have performed on this stage. Sarah Bernhardt and Ethel Barrymore and Bob Hope, Houdini, and most notably Judy Garland. Did the Broadway community have a little say in this project or some input? The project was watched over thoroughly by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, who oversaw every single aspect to make sure that the integrity and the legacy of the Palace Theater was protected. I've heard there's some really famous history with these stairs. That is correct. These are very famous stairs. These are what we call the Judy Garland stairs. She's one of our most storied performers, so we've chosen to name this stair after her. When we walked through these three stairs here, we just walked through about 100 plus years of architectural history with the original Palace Theater stair transferring into a brand new constructed stair as part of the new theater's overall massing. We're now standing on the fourth floor mezzanine bar, but it is inside the historic theater. So underneath all of these finishes is the historic material of the Palace Theater. Beyond it, everything is new, brand new construction. Yeah, now I understand Mancini Duffy comes together with PPPW. You guys had to work together in collaboration. What was that partnership like? PPPW was the historic restoration architect, so they handled everything that happened inside the historic box. Mancini Duffy was responsible for all of the supporting spaces. As we were walking up the stair, there is the vertical graining pattern of that wall covering. That's a Wolf Gordon wall covering that we worked very closely with them on. All the coordination that had to go together. I mean, it sounds like you just nailed it. There's certainly a lot of criteria and a lot of opinions that resulted in what you see when you're standing on the corner of 47th and 7th Avenue. Part of that is signage requirements, so the main sign that you see on 7th Avenue, that was all done in coordination with SNA Displays. They were a great partner for us to work with in that process that was extremely technical. You guys really managed to nail this with all of that complexity. Yeah, I mean, it feels like a major slam dunk when you're standing here in the space, and every part of it feels so wonderfully interwoven that you wouldn't even necessarily know how many different eras and epochs and people were involved in the overall design. So we're talking about a restoration and a renovation. Yes, that's right. So we have original historic elements that we preserved and restored and brought them back to their original. We were able to go back to original information from the New York Times from opening night in 1913 to see what the color palette was. So we used what was described as the ivory and the gold bronze color for the wall finishes, and I came up with this idea of this dark blue color to offset the glow and really make the other finishes glisten with the new details. We worked with Irwin Seating to have this custom colored seating. Very plush, by the way. Yes, it is very comfortable. We also have custom end panels that are Art Deco, so all of the elements that were added over time are in the Art Deco design, so we worked with that with our referential designs. Wow, wow, guys. This is incredible. I have to know, what are your favorite spots in this theater? For me, it's probably definitely the trap room. It's actually directly below us. It's where all the crew and the actors are originating from when they come onto the stage, all around the perimeter of the trap room. You're seeing the new architecture, the ring beam holding the historic architecture all in one spot, and you can still see that history there. For me, I'd have to say being up on the upper mezzanine, because that's now the closest you can get to the ceiling, where we can see, you know, all the pendentives with the instruments, the violins, and the lyres, and the putti are up close, and with the new chandelier, everything really just glows. One of my favorite spaces in the theater is the follow spot booth. It was formerly located at the rear of the balcony, and what we did is we installed a whole new floor inside the attic, above the ceiling. It's larger than most New Yorkers' apartments. It's truly a very special space on all of Broadway. Okay, Bill, what's your favorite spot? The escalator. Ah, I knew it. All of these places in this theater, and that's your choice? The escalator, listen, at first it represents the transition from the ground floor lobby to the beautiful new third floor lobby. It was also one of the most complicated pieces of this building to put together. Getting that all in there with ceiling heights was a pretty amazing accomplishment. We're pretty proud of it. You know, just going back to what you were saying, Bill, about how there was really no lift guy to call, and this happened. You are the people to call now for next time you have to lift the building 30 feet up in the air, right? You're the lift gang. Bravo. Thank you. Architects Mancini Duffy and PBBW literally pulled off what many would have thought to be impossible. Not just elevating a landmark, but literally transforming a Broadway experience for every guest to walk through those doors. Whenever you're designing a building for other architects, it tends to bring out the best in everybody, and with this building, they've honored the past with these great details while also creating a whole new space and a new narrative for the building and the community. West Adams in Los Angeles has had a rich history, but it's also had its challenges. In the 1930s and 40s, this area was affluent, but then the I-10 freeway basically cut the city in half, making suburbs like this less favorable. Today, West Adams is having a renaissance, and it's where an architectural organization has chosen to make its home. Carlo, you're the American Institute of Architects, the Los Angeles chapter. Yes, indeed. So why here? Because we wanted to be in a very central position to allow all of our members to participate in our events and programs. Yes, because in this town, you could be driving all day. You could be driving for hours and hours. Exactly, yes. The second reason is because we want to be a service to communities, and this is exactly the place where we are supposed to be right now. And Carlo, why this particular building? Well, curious enough, this was the first building that we saw, but we didn't want to get stuck with this building. We wanted actually to date other buildings. Okay, you wanted to play the field? Play the field, exactly. But in the end, you know, the first love you just can't forget. So here we are. I'm so happy for you. Play. Hi, Mike. So you were the architect of this project. Look at this, what a space. Great space, tall ceilings, big windows, lots of natural light. We wanted to provide a kind of a neutral backdrop for the host of events and exhibits to take place. And also some lovely little detail you've retained there, an ode to the past? Yes, certainly. We found some beautiful corbel details and ceiling details we believe are original to the space. I call them depression era details. They did a lot with a little, and that became kind of our mantra too for the project. And I know a challenge with a big space like this would be acoustics. Any tips and tricks there? Certainly. In a big space with hard surfaces, it's important to absorb as much sound as possible. So you really need to utilize every surface available in the walls, in the ceilings. We found a wonderful product from Otex Acoustics that could be cut to size and fit. It's made of recycled plastic felt material. Shall I do the clap test? Please. No reverb. Flat. Now, Clay, this is an interesting space here at the back. What's going on here? Well, originally built as a bank. So take a guess. The vault. That's right. The old bank vault. Look how thick those walls are. Yeah, 18 inches thick, solid concrete all the way around. Originally covered in plaster, we decided to chisel off the plaster and reveal the texture of the concrete. Yeah, and it makes a fantastic conference room. Now tell me about this timber structure. I notice it's got some gaps there. What's your thinking there? Yeah, those are deliberate. We're here in seismic earthquake country, so they're designed to take the movement during an earthquake without cracking the panels. Of course, we're in California. That's right. Now I love this mezzanine. What's the big move here? We were able to capture unused attic space and reuse it as a bit of a green room for quiet working and a collaboration zone. Now from up here, it's a great view of the floor space and interesting patterns going on there. Yeah, actually the checkerboard you see there is original bank floor. It's old-fashioned terrazzo poured in a pattern. Really? From the 1920s? That's right, yeah. To evenly light the space was a challenge with the high ceiling. So we turned to our partners at DMF Lighting, who has a modular kit of parts lighting that allowed us to get high performance, high power lights all the way to the floor, nice and evenly lit. And it allowed the adjustability of customizing the color to match our ceiling. Right, now the bathroom. It's kind of tucked away there to the side and to the back of the old vault. Yeah, quite literally between a rock and a hard place, we had to fit that bathroom. So to get all the required accessibility dimensions is quite a challenge. And they're gender neutral. There must be some sensitivities around that. That's right. With gender neutral comes privacy concerns, security concerns. To solve that, we turned to Bowbrick and Thrizzlington partitions, which provided elegant floor-to-ceiling partitions that have a bit of an indicator light at the top to tell you if the stall is occupied or not. This adds to the safety features. But the challenge with gender-neutral restrooms in California is that they're still not allowed by code. You're joking, in liberal California? It's hard to believe, but we worked closely with the City of Los Angeles to start to help rewrite that code to allow future projects to use this technique. How interesting, that bathroom has been instrumental in changing the code in the state. That's right, yeah, it's become a flagship for local projects. Clay, were you tempted to make this opening larger through to the office and the courtyard? We would have loved to, Mike, but we didn't want to push our luck with the code officials. Ah, yes, especially after the bathroom incident. That's right. Now, this is the office area. I can see Carlo doing some work there. Yep. Was that your work? I'm afraid not. We were lucky to find it from previous tenants, but we liked the aesthetic and we ran with it. In fact, it inspired an abstraction of interior landscape, including acoustical clouds and acoustical mountains on the wall. Ah, okay, what's that in the cloud there? Yeah, we also found these HVAC systems from Samsung. They're round, which is very unique, quiet, and they're highly efficient. Okay, a lot more interesting than the boxy thing stuck on the wall. Most definitely, yes. Now, I'm also seeing there's no window dressings. Yeah, we did that on purpose. We really wanted to welcome the community in, be transparent. If you're around later, you'll see how the building glows. It's kind of a new lantern landmark in the neighborhood. Well, this is another space, and well-suited for the California climate. Harvey, you're the president. Is this all working? Well, we're architects, and so I have to start by saying, for us, bricks and mortar is where it's at. A typical event of ours begins with people entering through that gate and a reception of some kind here, and then moving on into the interior for the program. But over the course of the program, you find people wandering in and out and using the space as a place to do that networking, make those encounters that they were looking forward to. And Carlo, what about the neighbors? Well, the neighborhoods are really liking the space. The space has been abandoned for a long time. It has been such a prominent building in the neighborhood, and having it reactivated really brings a lot of a sense of security to the neighbors. So, Clay, quite an honor to design this project, but also a tough gig. Yeah, it was an honor to be trusted by my peers, but with thousands of architects looking over my shoulder, no pressure, right? I can see in this light what Clay means. The AIA Los Angeles headquarters is a beacon in this community, welcoming all who want to engage. Tucked away from a really busy commercial corridor, this new intervention in this historic building to carve out these two courtyard spaces is really, really clever. These two courtyard spaces provide some respite, some quiet, as well as light and air into this apartment building on the second floor. Just a gem of a space inside this beautiful building. The historic Wicker Park neighborhood in Chicago is known for its art scene, restaurants, and vibrant nightlife. This project is a home nestled inside a bustling urban center. We're in this historic community, and I understand a lot of the buildings are being underutilized. It's true, as is true with a lot of major urban centers in the United States, and one of my passions as an architect is to find ways to breathe new life and give a second life to some of these older spaces. The building we're going to see, I believe it's over 100 years old? Easily. It probably dates the 1890s, immediately post-fire, and it's been in the family since the 1950s. When you're dealing with a historic building, there must be some challenges. They do come with challenges, particularly when they're in a landmark district. We had to be mindful of many historic details that are visible to the street. In this particular case, the metal ceiling was visible to the street, so we had to use a ceiling by Metal Ceiling Express to replace the old one. And you'll see that it's landlocked between two buildings, so we had to find ways to make this home light and airy and make it a place where you're comfortable raising a family. This place really feels like home. Yeah, believe it or not, this space was vacant for 30 years, and towards the end of that vacancy, this space was occupied by school owners, but you would have no idea. We really wanted this to feel like a ranch in the sky. We worked very closely with the homeowners to make sure we checked every box on their program. They got a home office, a guest room, a large primary suite, cute bedrooms for their kids. One thing that you probably didn't notice are the Fitzgrills, which is a far more elegant way of introducing conditioned air into a home. With a lot of these narrow lots in Chicago, you have to think of the building as a tube, right? And it's very, very complicated to get natural light into a tube. You either are getting it from the front end or the end at the alley. So that's why we introduced two interior courtyards. You really took what could have been a challenge and turned it into an opportunity. An outdoor space like this that is private in the dense urban context of Chicago is very hard to achieve. And we're framed by this wonderful palette of materials. Over here is the neighboring building, and this is composed of Chicago common brick, which was fired in beehive kilns that blind this entire city for decades. This contrasts with the James Hardy Siding, which is a product that we really like to use because of our harsh freeze-thaw cycles in Chicago. The mother in me loves the fact that there's this big window. I could sit in the kitchen, but I could still look out and see kids playing and know they're safe. Exactly. And a window like this would have been very hard to achieve as little as 20 years ago. The storefront installer would have to come in and build this thing on site. And now Marvin makes a picture window of this size available for most homeowners. Wow, look at Henry. This is where you're going to live. It's big. This is a big project. What made you decide to take it on? Well, we had known we were at the point where we were outgrowing our current space. We had another baby on the way, and we were at the point where we had to decide if we were going to move to the suburbs or stay in the city. And we knew that this was an option, and we decided to go for it. We decided to give it some life and some meaning again. And we're real excited that our kids get to grow up here too. Three years later, here you are. Are there any regrets? And what do you love the most? No regrets. We love it. We're right in the action. We've got street bus outside, restaurants, shops. And then at the end of the night, we can go to the back. We don't hear anything from the street, and we're able to relax. Yeah, and it's also really great to have kids growing up in the city. The parks are walkable. The school is walkable. And I think we're going to be fine for a really long time here. Being here today is the perfect reminder of the benefits of living in a thriving neighborhood. This project is the perfect example of utilizing spaces that already exist, whether it be in your own backyard or in your family. Sometimes academia can get a bad rap of being sort of on an ivory tower, but this is a great project that really connects Rutgers to the local community with real needs affecting real people. Camden, New Jersey is located just across the river from Philadelphia, but it has a history all its own. What was once the home of Walt Whitman now houses one of three campuses for Rutgers University, and today's building is helping educate the next generation of nurses. So, Rutgers is one of the oldest universities in the country, right? It is. It's the eighth oldest. We're a colonial college, about 260 years old now, and we've gone from a few folks as students in 1766 to over 100,000 faculty, staff, and students today. We have three main locations, all of them urban, New Brunswick, Newark, and the Camden campus where we are today. And Camden provides so many interesting possibilities for a place like this. It does. So, for decades, this was kind of an insular, three block by three block, very defined campus. As stewards of the built environment here at Rutgers, we very intentionally have reached out. So, if you were able to see eight blocks down south, you'd see Cooper Hospital. There was nothing between this campus and the health system. What better to locate midway than a nursing program in its new building? So, this is Rutgers' first off-campus academic building, right? It certainly is, and right here on Roosevelt Park, across from City Hall, was a really critical site. Not only is it off-campus, but it's downtown Camden. I mean, if you Google Camden, this is where Google takes you, right to Roosevelt Park, across from City Hall. And that was a big challenge for us. We wanted a building that faced the park, provided a presence, and helped shape this space. But it also needed to fulfill an important urban quality to sort of restore and heal this part of downtown Camden, which had been neglected for too long. One of the ways that you can do that is think about scale. The building's four stories, and that fits into what you kind of expect here downtown. And we also selected a material that harkened back to the sort of historic red brick masonry that you find on downtown as well. And to that end, we selected tactile, which provided sort of that red quality, but also from a distance kind of feels like masonry. You get up close, though, and you realize it's a high-performing concrete panel. As great as the building looks, at the end of the day, it's got to work. You know, when you consider the nationwide shortages of nursing, what a high recalling. Yeah, I mean, the nursing program was a desperate need that the university had. Nursing students go through four years, and as an off-campus setting, we needed to create an interior environment that would suit all those needs for all four years. So the first thing I'm noticing is just how big and light-filled this space is. Yeah, and believe me, that's something that the students and faculty lacked in their previous facilities, where they were sort of crammed in, and they didn't have even academic space they needed to deliver their curriculum, and we provided that for them here. There are three or four different types of classrooms, different sizes, along with research space, as well as a variety of spaces for faculty, so they can work independently with students, with one another, and relax when they're not on stage. All the back-of-house support that's necessary to deliver the curriculum, and then spaces like this, which are all about sort of the in-between zone. In their previous facility, the corridor was where students hung out when they weren't in class. We reinterpreted what a corridor environment could be, and what it could help deliver for students pedagogically and socially. It's funny you mentioned that, because we know that research has shown natural lighting can have incredible effects on academic performance. That's absolutely right. Students benefit from mental health, as well as academic outcomes, when they have an access to nature. One of the challenges here had to do with how to bring in as much daylight as possible, without overloading mechanical systems, for example. So working with Cornier, we developed this exterior shading system, and Guardian provided a really high-performing glass that has an interior sort of daylight temperature that matches what you see outdoors. I'm also noticing a lot of different kinds of space is really small and intimate to this more big and communal space. Absolutely right, and we know that students learn in different ways. You'll have a student come in, you know, cramming for a simulation session. They need some head-down time to prepare. We need a quiet place for that to happen. As well as spaces like this, when it's time to party, they can do it. So I can be really quiet alone, or with everybody else, all the same. We call that cave to cafe. Cave. As long as there are no bears, I'm fine with that. The building is designed vertically to relate specifically to the nursing curriculum as students move from year to year. So on the lower floors of the building, the spaces are geared toward lecture-style learning and generic class spaces. But as you move up through the building as a student, you more and more engage in simulation settings that imitate, mimic, and provide a context for students to begin to engage in real-world nursing activities. The top floor introduces the idea of standardized patients, which are actors that pretend to be sick, and that really prepares them for stepping out into the real world. So the higher up you go, the more real it gets. Exactly. Predominantly, our students are first-generation students, and so they want to pick a place that they can feel welcome. When you walk through the front doors, immediately you can feel that the environment embraces you, and that you could truly envision yourself belonging here. Sometimes architecture is about more than just a building. It could be a launch pad for the future, and today we saw an incredibly considered space that's perfectly positioned to develop the next generation of nurses, while also setting a new standard for universities everywhere. We hope you've enjoyed our look at some of the finest architectural designs from around America. Join us next time for more groundbreaking architecture on America by Design. For more information on any of the projects featured in this series, go to bydesign.global.