San Mateo Performing Arts Center Renovation
The previous 1950s San Mateo Performing Arts Center (SMPAC) located on the San Mateo High School campus was woefully inadequate for the nearly full-time bookings of student and regional groups, including use by all the San Mateo Union High School District’s schools, the Peninsula Symphony and Broadway by the Bay. The district hired the architectural firm to complete a major overhaul of its current performance space to better serve its variety of users, and to remain the best and largest theater between San Francisco and Cupertino, California.
The firm held multiple meetings and utilized 3D visualization walkthroughs to collaborate with the district, school faculty and students, as well as the regional groups using the theater to gather design input. This stakeholder input made clear the need for a new dramatic sense of entry and the creation of a new basement level, requiring excavating an entire 17,700 square-foot new floor under the house, a significant earthwork operation.
After an extensive demolition, reconstruction and renovation – including significant theatrical, acoustical and infrastructure improvements (only the house structural walls and fly-loft were retained from the original facility) – the modernized three-story 1,540-seat SMPAC features a new lobby, basement space, wrap-around mezzanine and balcony seating, orchestra pit and fly-loft.
Providing a reimagined and inviting entrance for theater-goers, the facility’s three-story glass wall lobby boasts enhanced patron services, such as concessions and bathrooms distributed throughout the main and mezzanine levels to reduce congestion, as well as audio and video screens for broadcasting performances. The new basement houses a three-stop orchestra pit lift, prop and wardrobe storage, dressing and green rooms, a scene shop, and other support spaces. This level also contains complex technical components, such as production rigging, lighting, variable acoustics and AV systems.
Following SMPAC’s dramatic renovation, it not only remains a premiere performance venue for the community, but the facility now fully supports the district’s Education Program for its students. SMPAC’s stage and house is equipped with wired and wireless technologies, including a large format video screen, perfect for hosting multi-media student presentations. Additionally, for students studying theater arts, the new multi-level lobby allows informal teaching and impromptu performance areas, and the professional grade facilities including computer controlled systems, rigging, lighting, and catwalks/technical ledges provide hands on learning for behind-the-scenes work.
Design Challenge
The original SMPAC had many design issues to overcome. First, the previous theater’s more than 1,500 seats were on a single low-sloping level, resulting in inadequate – and for many in the audience – distant sightlines to the stage. Second, the woefully undersized lobby was mostly inaccessible, lacked sound and light locks to the house, and offered minimal restrooms and concession and ticketing space. Third, the stage support facilities such as the dressing rooms, scene shop and storage areas were undersized and mostly inaccessible. Lastly, the 1950s building contained significant structural issues, particularly at the tall concrete proscenium walls. Despite attempts to ameliorate the theater’s shortcomings while retaining much of the existing building, multiple design studies proved a much larger reconstruction of the building was required. The biggest design challenges were resolved by:- Reimagining the seating from its low-sloped auditorium arrangement by removing and replacing the house floor slab. This allowed a new cross aisle at stage level for accessibility and regrading from below-grade at the orchestra pit level to the above-grade parterre seats. In addition, a third of the seating from the back of the house was removed and placed at the new mezzanine and balcony levels over the new main-level parterre seating. This updated seating design provided new terraced seating with proper sightlines and accessible seats at multiple locations.
- The lobby inadequacies and accessibility shortcomings were resolved by building a new three-story lobby in the space gained from removing the seating at the back of the house.
- Using the existing house concrete walls, a new basement was graded below the new seating to provide support spaces and the opportunity for a displacement ventilation system; acoustically appropriate for a performance venue.
- Reusing and structurally upgrading the house and fly loft exterior walls and roof structure provided a cost savings over replacement. Even with new mezzanine and balcony seating, the resulting house volume was able to accommodate new technical level and catwalks for state-of-the-art performance amenities. The complex fly loft rigging, weights and battens were replaced with a new and significantly safer system for student use.