St. Ursula Academy Projects | Cincinnati, OH PROJECT FACTS: Owner: St. Ursula Academy Services: Architecture, Engineering, Interiors, Planning, Assessments
St. Ursula, a parochial high school, is a picturesque campus centrally located on 10 acres of land north of downtown Cincinnati. As a Catholic, college-prep girl’s institution, the school carries with it a tradition of academic excellence, innovation, and service. In the buildings of this distinguished campus, the students are wholly educated and prepared to creating a better world. SUA formulated a long-range plan for facility updates in order to meet the growing needs of the student curriculum. One critically lacking area was adequate performing arts space. As part of their campaign to renovate their existing spaces, we converted the gymnasium, St. Angela Hall, into a state-of-the-art theater that would serve students and faculty as well as the community. Design of the new theater included sloped seating for 265 audience members, an accessible orchestra pit, a scene shop, new dressing rooms, new lighting, rigging and sound systems. The design team was faced with implementing a turn-key, fully-functioning performing arts theater within a traditional concrete block high school gymnasium of inside dimensions of 52’ x 90’. Utilizing the original stage proscenium, stage floor, and stage house, the single largest issue was to accommodate the intended audience size in an acoustically balanced space. The seating rake, along with a continuous wrapping-style of acoustically reflective wood ceiling and wall panels, created an equally impressive visual affect, as well as beautifully tuned room. We developed a dynamic lecture and performance space from the interplay of the functional reflective and absorptive acoustic panels intertwined with lighting and mechanical support elements. The ceiling treatments were extended onto the surrounding walls including the LED general lighting fixtures and reflective wood panels. Aesthetically, the theater sets a new bar for the St. Ursula Academy brand by instituting wireless building automation controls, a new HVAC system and dimmable LED house lighting. Being fully handicap accessible to both patrons and performers make the theater unique amongst its peers, and further elevate SUA’s leadership in the preparation of young women for college and their respective careers. The theater was designed to accommodate two classes of the school at a time. Daily functioning as a teaching lab, the theater is operationally simple to use, but when necessary can accommodate a full performance complete with orchestra pit, thrust stage, follow spots, full audio, projection, and lighting controls, both backstage and in booth. The full-service scene shop, chorus and lead dressing rooms, and full stage house rigging systems make the theater’s flexibility virtually boundless. Elevar was also hired to help St. Ursula Academy benchmark its current building systems conditions in order to establish a preventative maintenance and capital replacement planning budget. The assessment identifies the current condition of the roofs, parking lots, building envelope, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, controls, life safety, security, access control system, theater equipment, gymnasium, and kitchen equipment. From the assessment, the school will attribute a short, mid, and longterm maintenance and replacement schedule, applying cost factors to the schedule, and enter all the data into a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).
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St. Ursula Academy Projects | Cincinnati, OH
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