ULI Global Awards for Excellence: The Strand - San Francisco, California
San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has opened a new venue in the Strand, transforming the century-old movie theater into a nonprofit experimental performance space. The new theater acts as a watershed for the economic regeneration of San Francisco’s Central Mid-Market Neighborhood.
Developer: American Conservatory Theater Designer: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Site size: 0.5 acre (0.2 ha)
San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) has opened a new venue in the Strand, transforming the century-old movie theater into a nonprofit experimental performance space. The new theater acts as a watershed for the economic regeneration of San Francisco’s Central Mid-Market Neighborhood. With a 285-seat theater, educational facilities, a public lobby and café, and a black-box theater and rehearsal space, the revived theater serves as a key component to the revitalization of this part of the city. Large storefront windows draw passersby to the open-lobby layout and a dramatic, suspended nearly 500-square-foot (47 sq m) light-emitting diode (LED) screen that pays homage to the building’s history as a cinema.
The design concept behind this new theater was to expose the activity of the building to the outside, get people active and engaged in the space, and bring life back to a neighborhood that is recovering from decades of disinvestment. The lobby design has been conceived as a dynamic stage set where theater students and audience members are performers, with stairs, a balcony, and an LED screen as their backdrop. The LED screen displays videos and images that extend the theater experience into the lobby before performances, and serves as an exhibition space for local video art.
The theater is located on a high-traffic pedestrian route near bike lanes, the Muni trolley line, and the underground Bay Area Rapid Transit and Muni rail lines.
The Strand is expected to attract 100,000 people to the neighborhood in its first year of operation. Serving as the second nonprofit organization in San Francisco under the American Conservatory Theater, the Strand has allowed A.C.T. to expand its capacity as an educational institution.
Daniel Lobo is the Senior Director of Awards, Education and Advisory Group, for the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit education and research institute that focuses on issues of land use, real estate and urban development. The mission of the Institute is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Prior to joining ULI Mr. Lobo was an independent consultant working as project manager for a variety of urban and research initiatives, in particular facilitating open cultural urban interventions internationally, and new media research. Earlier he worked extensively as project manager for the Center for Communities by Design at the American Institute of Architects, and as Urban Designer at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill LLP. He holds a MSc City Design and Social Science from the London School of Economics, and a BA (Honors) from the School of Architecture and Interior Design at London Metropolitan University.
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