Community Center for the Arts Regional Auditorium

The final design of this 8-story community center draws inspiration directly from the architectural and cultural precedents of its site context. The project site sits within the Oakland Historical district. Some of the original community-based architecture produced in that location by Native American tribes were called shellmounds. Circular at their based and offsetting incrementally as they ascended, this offset circular geometric form was used in the final project to create the curvilinear facade of the interior walls, the openings in floor and roof plates, and the final circulation layouts. As you can see in the diagram, these three offset curves shifted, disappeared, and reappeared within the final layout, the curves on each level offset from the location of the central auditorium as you move from the ground to the top floors, creating visual access to the entire perimeter of the auditorium on each floor.

 

As the final building is a mixed use center, a balance of private and public is created by housing the more private programs at the buildings base, and slowly introducing the more public-oriented programing on the upper floors, leading to a public open patio at its top. Visitors enter into the main lobby and box office, leading to the office and meeting rooms on the second floor. Rehearsal and dressing rooms are located on the third and fourth floors, as well as the first entrances to the auditorium- the backstage on the third and seating entrance on the forth. The firth floor houses the entrance to the upper level of the auditorium as well as concessions for visitors as the curvilinear geometry forming the upper interior walls is slowly pushed to the sites edges. This curve reappears on the 6th floor enclosing the community rooms. A restaurant with adjacent commercial space is housed on the 7th floor, and on the top floor a public gallery and open patio.