Judges' Comments

• N/A

Project Data:

Completion Date:     1/1/2017

Square Footage:      25500

Building Use:           Performing Arts Theater, Classrooms, Workshops

Location:                 6702 Wandermere Dr, San Diego, CA 92120

Project Description:

The Patrick Henry High School Arts, Media & Entertainment Center and Production Studios (PHAME) is a comprehensive revitalization project transforming the community through collaborative use. The performing arts venue includes a 509-seat House and various California Career Technical Education funded learning spaces. Joint usage has begun with local, private and community college theater and orchestra groups, granting students direct access to professional practice, and fullfilling a much needed district desire for applied learning in the arts. The theater holds full capability to house both musical and theatrical venues.

A major component of PHAME, the Production Studios and Workshops, is equipped with traditional and digital design and fabrication facilities, allowing students and local groups alike to utilize the most current performing arts technology, and providing useful infrastructure for regional growth in the arts. The venue holds the capacity to support the entire production process, from set and costume design spaces, to lighting and audio workshops, to digital fabrication and woodshop production areas.

High performance has played a major role in the design of PHAME, both in the technology it houses and in the centers building design. The building has been cerified under ‘CHPS Verified’, part of California’s high performance school initiative, and SDG+E’s Savings by Design. LED lighting throughout the entire complex, operable skylights with daylight sensors, and the use of local and recycled materials makes it currently the most efficient building on campus, helping set the standard for future expansion and modernization. PHAME is one stage within an ongoing comprehensive whole site modernization, aimed at making Patrick Henry High School net zero energy.

As an expression of PHAME’s digital fabrication capabilites, the proscenium wood panels surrounding the stage opening has incorporated contemporary technology with an historical twist. The Pantages Theater, a local, and since demolished theater from the late ‘20’s, has served as the inspiration for this important theater element. Its rich embellishment, so crucial to the architectural language of that time, is reinterpretated through digital means through a transferred image via CNC cut perforated wood panels, allowing a bit of history to relive through the filter of today.

Funded by Prop S, Prop Z and love from local community, the Patrick Henry High School Arts, Media & Entertainment Center and Production Studios will become the gateway not only to the campus, but to the growth of dramatic arts in this community.

C.O.T.E. | Committee on the Environment

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