project: Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts

space: Historic 1922 School Building

owner: Dallas Independent School District

location: Dallas, Texas

architect: Booziotis & Company Architects

Overview

As part of the renovations and additions to the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, the original, historic, red brick school house - still bearing its original name of Washington High School over the main entrance - was carefully restored by the Architect to reflect its original 1922 character. While this building serves primarily as administrative offices and academic classrooms, the original cafeteria on the first floor was transformed into an art gallery and exhibition space for the visual arts while the original auditorium on the second floor was transformed into a blackbox style theatre for the performing arts.

Gallery & Exhibition Space

The original cafeteria was transformed into the M.R. and Evelyn Hudson Foundation Art Gallery. This space serves as an art exhibition gallery, first and foremost, for the students of the Visual Arts Department. While the Gallery is not considered a performance space, Encore Design Group designed an overhead pipe grid system within the space from which some types of sculpture and other art may be hung. In addition, a theatrical style lighting system with dimming and wall controls is provided for small-format gallery lighting that can be moved around as needed for each exhibition. Using the lighting system, a number of gallery "looks" can be created. In addition, the pipe grid is finished with a durable white epoxy paint to match the theatrical lighting fixtures and ceiling colors. For video-based art exhibitions, a portable video projector can also be mounted to the underside of the pipe grid.

Auditorium

Over the years, much of the original auditorium on the second floor of the school building was covered up, walls added, and ceiling lowered. During demolition to make way for the renovation, many forgotten architectural elements were revealed once again. The Architects decided to restore many of these elements to being the auditorium back to its former glory. One surprising element was the discovery of the original proscenium arch. The design charge at the start of the project was to transform this auditorium into a blackbox style theatre. Once the original proscenium was found, it was determined that this space shall be both a blackbox style theatre and a proscenium style theatre complete with a new red proscenium curtain. The photo here shows the restored proscenium arch during construction.

Blackbox Theatre

To tranform the original auditorium into a Blackbox Theatre, Encore Design Group worked closely with the Architect to maintain historic architectural integrity of the space while providing infrastructure to allow it to function as a blackbox. We designed a series of pipe grids over the entire auditorium, one pipe grid per section of ceiling separated by original drop-down architectural elements. Walk-along style black masking draperies, single panel and bi-parting, are attached to various straight and curved tracks mounted to the pipe grid to allow for various drapery configurations. When all drapes are extended, a "backstage" area is created along three of the four walls of the room and sightlines to and from the entrance doors are masked. In addition, the Architect specified automated flat black-out curtains to seal out exterior light from entering through the large exterior windows.

Technical Systems

In addition to a portable sound system for the Blackbox Theatre, we designed an IGBT type distributed dimming system within the space. Each of the five pipe grids has one dimming raceway mounted to the top, running the full length of the grid. In addition, four 12-circuit portable dimming strips were provided to be used for side or floor lighting. Taken together, the Blackbox Theatre has over 150 dimming circuits for use within the space. Distributed DMX via ethernet is provided in the Blackbox. Ethernet and DMX nodes are provided around the space for connection and use of the portable lighting control console in nearly any location. A roll-down security gate was installed just upstage the proscenium to allow the small proscenium stage to serve as a secure location to store the portable theatrical sound and lighting equipment.