Young Centre for the Performing Arts

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Project Name: Young Centre for the Performing Arts
Construction year: 2006
Website:
Address: 55 Mill Street, Building 49, Ontario , TORONTO - Canada

Architect(s) : Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (KPMB) (www.kpmbarchitects.com)
Project Category: Cultural | Education

Latitude: 43.6507
Longitude: -79.3598

Young Centre for the Performing Arts

The Young Centre for the Performing Arts (YCPA) is the result of a unique partnership between George Brown College and Soulpepper Theatre Company. Since opening in January 2006, the Young Centre has significantly anchored the Distillery District as a cultural destination. The project introduces a new paradigm that combines teaching and live performance in one facility.

The 44,000 s.f. project involved the adaptive reuse of Tank houses 9 and 10 and was delivered within a tight budget of $10.0 million. New interventions are limited yet strategically deployed for maximum impact. The solution focused on developing a clear plan order that would maximize building performance, and create a dynamic platform for performance and teaching. On the exterior an extended, horizontal wood canopy marks a generous entrance that leads into the main lobby space. The two-storey high lobby is the signature space of the Young Centre, and was created by enclosing the space between the two Tank Houses with massive, neo-primitive Douglas fir timber trusses that span the historic bearing walls. The lobby differs from the traditional theatre lobby by creating an open venue accessible throughout the day (as opposed to being limited to the hours before and during performances). In this space all users of the centre converge – actors, students, visitors, and patrons. A café, box office and theatre bookstore and tall bar tables and benches encourage the use of this space for formal and informal gatherings and performances. A fireplace and a large video screen stimulates old and new modes of interactivity.

The overall design is characterized by a ‘raw warm industrial’ aesthetic to respect the historic fabric of the Gooderham and Worts site, and to realize the design within an economy of means. The raw aesthetic also resonates the ‘edge’ values of the new institution. Brick facades are left exposed, original windows are retained, and the existing cobblestone pavements are conserved. Interior finishes are utilitarian, limited to concrete floors and painted walls. Ceilings are left exposed to meet both cost and functional requirements, but effectively achieve a complex visual canopy that weaves throughout the scheme. The raw and untreated surfaces and textures are animated by natural daylight and, in the evenings, by selectively placed light sources.
Within the Young Centre multiple layers of time and architecture, history and culture, teaching and performance coexist. The architecture casts the historic fabric of the Distillery District as a striking backdrop and stage to the inherent drama generated daily by the actors, performances, and students.
(text from architects' website)

Contributed by ArchiTeam