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Biscuit Company Lofts
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Studzinski Recital Hall and Kanbar AuditoriumThe Cedar Lake Dance Ensemble
Two 1920s garages are morphed into a chic theater for dancers.
Located in New York City’s rejuvenated High Line district, The Cedar Lake Dance Ensemble is a technologically advanced black box theater for an ambitious dance troupe. To the greatest degree possible, the design scheme utilized two 1920s brick garages—one for rehearsal space and one for performance—as they were found.
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The western half, containing the offices, rehearsal hall, lounge, and lockers for the dancers, had been restored in 1999, and was formerly a photo Studio. The architects reworked existing walls to create new locker rooms and a lounge, and added new lighting, sprinklers, and mechanical rooms, while retaining the rehearsal hall’s beautifully exposed original roof trusses and large skylight.
The eastern half of the building was a large open shed with the same fine bones as the western portion: a simple gable roof with delicately exposed trusses. But the eastern section of the building had not been restored. The program for the theater called for flexible seating and required a number of new rooms: patron toilets, dressing rooms, lighting and audio closets, and wardrobe. The architects erected a new wall made of recycled brick at the northern end of the east shed’s open space and constructed the dressing rooms, wardrobe, and mezzanine for utility spaces behind it. The patron toilets were inserted in a pair of small, cold-rolled steel-clad pods at the front of the building.
The material palette was limited to the application of new finishes where needed in neutral colors and simplicity sympathetic to the original exposed structure and materials. Lighting was used throughout as a unifying element. New metal detail shows off the surviving grit of the old, while making it part of a contemporary scene.
Formal name of building: The Cedar Lake Dance Ensemble
Location: New York, New York
Completion Date (Month and Year): January 2006
Gross square footage: 16,200 sq.ft.
Total construction cost: $3.4 million
Owner: The Cedar Lake Dance Ensemble
Architect:
Platt Byard Dovell White Architects LLP
20 West 22nd Street, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10010
T: (212) 691-2440
F: (212) 633-0144
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