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Cranbrook Performing Arts Center

A studio project at the Harvard GSD with studio advisors Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of TWBTA Architects . In collaboration with Gary Hilderbrand of Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architects , currently overseeing the continued development for Eliel Saarinnen's historic master plan for the Cranbrook Art Academy, this project proposed a 55,000 square foot performance and education center for visiting artists and educators, college, high school, middle school, and grade school students of the Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The design proposes four separate volumes submerged deep within the topography of the site. Cranbrook's hilly campus is a natural host for the deep volumes and sloped seating required for a theater space. Multiple planners throughout the history of the campus had anticipated the development of a theater on the proposed site, located directly on axis with the main entrance to the campus. The theater building frames two major axes on the site: the north-south axis frames the campus and the adjacent forest, and the east-west axis merges the front and back of house portions of the theater complex. From the exterior the four volumes also frame various views of the campus, the adjacent Lake Jonah, and create an outdoor performance space. The interiors of the four main volumes contain four separate programs, a main performance hall, a dance theater, a black box theater, plus housing and offices for educators and guest performers. The subterranean lobby space connects the four volumes and hosts a mix of multiple functions, including educational classrooms and a set and costume shop, allowing students and visitors to observe the front and back of house elements of the performance. During the day the theater building rests, and is demure and shy, settled behind the pine forest of the campus. At night, when performances are held, light escapes from the main lobby and reflects on the exterior canopy, signalling the start of a performance.