SANTA FE SPRINGS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

• TEAM

  ARCHITECTURAL TEAM | John Sparano, Anne Mooney, Ludwing Juarez

• RECOGNITION

  2006 | Utah Arts Council DesignArts Award

The Santa Fe Springs Performing Arts Center design project is a commission for a community performing arts center to be located within an existing neighborhood park. The plan was developed to allow equal access from both sides of the building and for a balanced orientation to the park, the neighborhood and the elementary school located to the west of the site.

This project began with the site observation, which revealed the dual programs exerting forces on the future building site: recreation (municipal park with numerous athletic fields and amenities) and education (adjacent elementary school). The building program is performance-oriented so we began to examine the relationship between the performing arts and athletics, finding many correlations.

The body-based physicality of the two pursuits is obvious, but there are also similarities in strategy, skill, leadership hierarchies, choreography, teamwork and collaboration, the temporal aspect of a performance or a “match,” the relationship between the audience or fan and the “star,” and the physical field/stage with its visibility, lighting and acoustical components, uniforms, costumes and masks.

In understanding the essence of an intimately-scaled performing arts center, we look to the primal notion of a clearing in the forest, where a gathering place organically emerges surrounded by nature. Audience members arrive at the performance through a path in the woods that leads to a clearing. Voyeuristic glimpses into the theatrical ritual are possible from the outside.

To articulate these ideas and observations, a perforated exterior shell created by stained glass windows provides glimpses into the center space and allows the interior to be lit through colored apertures. Building materials include a dry-stacked stone façade, glass of varying translucency, painted metal skylights and wood interior finishes. Brightly-colored skylights mark the center spatially with their form and through directing light onto the surfaces.