Split (1)

train · 6.71k rows

content stringlengths 0 24.8k
Design Achievement - The revitalization of the Appell Center for the Performing Arts expands one of the region's key cultural assets and rejuvenates two historic theaters--the highly ornamented, Adams-esque-style, 1,267-seat Strand Theatre, which opened in 1925 as a venue for vaudeville and silent film, and the 600-seat Capitol Theatre, built in 1906 as a single-level dance hall and opera house. DLR Group's design creates a unified performing arts block within a prominent historic district on the National Registry by integrating previously disparate structures and new building additions. The integration creates efficiencies and much-needed support and community space enabling the Center to respond to the overwhelmingly positive support of the performing arts in the community and to take advantage of additional revenue streams resulting from community events and facility rentals. Respecting the historic context of the district, new additions are composed of complementary materials and a design vocabulary that harmonizes with the original façades of the historic structures. Scope Summary - The project encompassed restoration and adaptive reuse of four varied landmark structures, new construction of three complementary building additions, insertion of new mechanical and electrical infrastructure into the historic structures, and upgrades to life safety and performance audio and theatrical systems. Work on the Strand Theatre focused on restoration of the exterior façade and the complete revitalization of the theater’s interior, including decorative ornament. A key feature--the addition of a 250-seat mezzanine balcony--added seating and provided new space for patron amenities such as a dress circle and rooms overlooking the street. To support the Strand Theatre, the project annexed two other landmark buildings—the Lehmeyer and the Owen—doubling the venue's lobby space and providing amenity space for concessions, a box office, catering facilities, and toilets. Enhancements to the adjacent Capitol Theatre included stage expansion, backstage improvements, renovation of the balcony, and restoration of the proscenium. Additions provided patron amenities, a significant new rehearsal hall, and several multi-purpose spaces that serve the entire complex. The project was completed nearly $1 million under budget with 1% change orders. DLR Group provided architecture; MEP and structural engineering; historic preservation; and theater technical services.
Design Achievement – The West Wing campus expansion at South Pointe Hospital integrates cutting-edge technology, functional efficiency, and attractive aesthetics to deliver a tranquil environment serving the southeastern suburbs of Cleveland. Reimaging the potential of this medical facility is the result of close collaboration with the client and an interactive process involving a cross-sectional steering committee. The central focus of the project was a new surgery center that consolidates two surgery centers previously located in two separate buildings into a single, unified space. Located between the existing endoscopy unit and surgery suite, a new peri-operative area was inserted into a new space created by the joining of the new and existing construction. The 10 OR surgery suite includes an endovascular suite, shell space for two additional ORs, and ample windows providing natural light and views. Access to the surgery center is directly adjacent to a new entry. The surgery center is surmounted by a 24 bed, surgical and medical intensive care unit developed as an innovative four-bed module with a decentralized nurse station per module. Contiguous to the original hospital, the three-story surgery and critical care expansion creates a highly visible, accessible, and identifiable front door to South Pointe Hospital. The design of the new unit was the topic of a lecture at the 2004 Healthcare Facilities Symposium and a related article in Healthcare Design magazine. Scope Summary – This project delivered a 100,000 SF expansion to South Pointe Hospital to create a new entry to the campus. A new north entry supports convenient access, simplified wayfinding, and parking for patients. An innovative 4-bed intensive care module consolidates a technologically-advanced surgery center with the intensive care unit. The first level includes a comprehensive medical education center with a 150-seat auditorium and library. A circulation spine forms the main axis linking the new addition to the existing building and elevators, clarifying wayfinding through the center. Central processing and distribution is located on the ground floor with separate elevators isolating clean, sterilized surgical instruments and equipment. The scope also included new mechanical and electrical systems to increase standby and emergency capacities. DLR Group provided planning, architectural and interior design, mechanical, electrical, and structural engineering services.
Design Achievement - Bibbins Hall, the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music’s main teaching building with 40 studios and 10 classrooms, opened its doors in 1964. The building was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, best known as the architect of the original World Trade Center building. In order to accommodate growth, the Conservatory needed to find space for a new recital and performance hall within the iconic complex that would exhibit excellent acoustic performance and isolation for ensemble recitals, serve as a multi-purpose daily-use classroom, and accommodate up to 65 occupants. DLR Group’s design re-imagines this campus icon; providing a fresh approach to music education. The design solution replaces two classrooms and two offices on the top level of the existing building with a new double-height volume that appears as a simple frosted glass lantern from the exterior. This feature permits soft natural light into the performance space, while deferring to the reflection of the sky and existing formal language of the Yamasaki building for its image. In the evening, it gives the creative activity of the musicians inside visibility from the outside. Facing Tappan Square, Bibbins Hall embodies much of the city’s collective landscape and is subject to historic landmarks design oversight. Scope Summary - This multi-phased renovation of a music building encompassed an aggregate of 42,000 SF. Phase I second-floor renovation included the overhaul of mechanical, electrical and technology infrastructure; addition of new windows; and update of classrooms, teaching studios, and rare instrument storage areas. The Phase II main third-floor renovation provided larger classrooms, developed daylight infused performance and teaching studios and a glass lantern that pierces the roof. The Phase III renovation encompassed the remainder of the third floor, including corridors, faculty offices, teaching studios, and two classrooms. Phase IV remodeled the first floor teaching studios and classrooms. Phase V renovated the stairs, entries, restrooms, and the Dean’s Suite. DLR Group provided: architecture, MEP and structural engineering, security, information transport, acoustic, and audiovisual design services.
Design Achievement – The Balboa Theatre is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the 1,339-seat live performance venue is the most architecturally significant and ornate theater in San Diego. It features eclectic Mediterranean-style decoration and a tall, rectilinear hall with excellent natural acoustics. DLR Group’s design restores a piece of San Diego’s history and adapts the space to accommodate diverse performance programs—from music, theater, dance, and choral presentations to community, corporate, and convention gatherings. The design restored the exterior rotunda, lobbies, and the entire audience chamber and balcony. New, wider seating was installed and the decorative ceiling, walls, and original chandeliers were restored and featured waterfalls were returned to working order. Based on a small black and white glass slide from the 1920s and historical research to determine colors and allegory, the design team reproduced the original, hand-painted Grand Drape that was no longer in existence. Scope Summary – The Balboa Theatre is one of the country’s last remaining large historic theaters to be restored on this scale. Completed in several phases in accordance with The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, the project culminated an 18-year effort to return the vaudeville-era theater and movie house to its original 1924 splendor while transforming it into a modern, multi-use performing arts center. New mechanical, electrical, and performance systems such as rigging, lighting, and audiovisual systems were installed. An orchestra pit lift, orchestra side shell panels, and full variable acoustics were added. The lobby, box office, loading area, and public amenities were improved and expanded. The structure was reinforced for seismic stability and the blade sign and marquee were recreated. The renovation was accomplished under the direction of the Civic San Diego, a public, nonprofit corporation created by the City to facilitate the redevelopment of 1,500 acres in downtown San Diego. DLR Group provided integrated architecture, MEP engineering, interior design, and theater technical services for this project.
Design Achievement – Repeatedly ranked as a Top 100 Hospital, Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest Hospital continues to improve its services with the addition of Seidman Tower. The design takes a sprawling, landlocked campus and provides a unifying solution that addresses serious capacity issues, flow and operational efficiencies, critical infrastructure conditions, and zoning codes to maximize patient experience and satisfaction. The DLR Group design team led a collaborative design process with the medical and hospital staff. The design solution is a contemporary and inspiring healthcare environment that enhances patient privacy, supports quality care, and improves the ease of access and use of the facility. The major path of public circulation appears as a simple glass arcade that slips between the new tower and the existing medical office building. Elevating every area of the prominent hospital campus, this five-year, phased project exemplifies effective redevelopment through planning, design, and collaboration of an integrated team. Despite more than 550 system shutdowns throughout the five-year project, there were zero patient care issues and zero lost work days due to construction. The collaborative project process produced improved employee engagement, operational efficiencies, and improved HCAPS surveys that were the subject of presentations at Healthcare Design and Healthcare Symposium conferences. Scope Summary – This highly complex project entailed interfaces between new and existing structures. The scope included multi-phased expansion/renovations of the Emergency and Surgery Departments to deliver 229,000 SF of new construction and 70,000 SF of renovation on a landlocked hospital campus. The design team worked with the city to rewrite the zoning code to allow contiguous development and full project scope included 72 medical/surgical patient rooms, 33 Neonatal Intensive Care beds, central sterile rooms, emergency department, materials management, and engineering central plant improvements. LEED Silver certification was achieved in part through replacing surface parking at the threshold of the campus with natural landscapes, increased landscape area, reduced energy consumption, and high-performance glazing. DLR Group provided programming, architecture, and interior design services. MEP, structural and IT engineering services also were provided by the team for all new construction work.
Design Achievement - In downtown Cleveland at Playhouse Square lies a remarkable group of four theaters, all constructed in the 1920s as vaudeville and motion picture houses. The theaters reached their peak from the 1930s through the 1950s but all four theaters were dark by 1969. Some suffered damage and neglect and were threatened with demolition. In the 1970’s DLR Group, along with a group of passionate civic advocates, orchestrated a master plan for a 60-acre revitalized theater district that would encompass the theaters and new commercial properties in adjacent buildings. Today much of the original vision has been fully executed and Playhouse Square is now a major visitor attraction and economic development catalyst for the city. The first and largest renovated Theater District in the United States and the nation’s 2nd largest performing arts center, Playhouse Square now attracts over 2,000,000 patrons annually to a wide variety of arts and entertainment events. The original redevelopment of Playhouse Square received a National Trust for Historic Preservation Honor Award upon its completion. In 2010, the complex received a 25-Year Award from AIA Ohio, testifying to its ongoing success. Scope Summary - Our firm has been continuously involved in the development of Playhouse Square for the past 40 years. In addition to the initial restoration, renovation and reopening of Playhouse Square’s magnificent 1920s theaters: the Palace, State, and Ohio, our firm designed restaurant and banquet facilities, a parking structure, a central box office and—most recently—Idea Center, the renovation of the Hanna Theatre, and the re-configuration of the Allen Theatre for use by the Cleveland Play House and Cleveland State University. Additional projects in the Playhouse Square District include an Art Gallery for Cleveland State University and the fit out of the Kent State University Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative. Most recently, DLR Group completed a new 30-year master plan in 2014, the re-creation of the Ohio Theatre’s historic lobby in 2016, and renovations to the seating, box office, and back of house areas in the Key Bank State Theatre in 2020. DLR Group has provided master planning, architecture, interior design, MEP + Structural engineering, LEED/sustainable design, theater technical, historic preservation, tax credit, audiovisual, acoustics, and signage/wayfinding design services.
The Bricker Federal Building (FB) is in the Central Business District of Columbus, Ohio. The seven-story building is designed in the Brutalist style and was constructed in 1977. In 1988 it was named in honor of John William Bricker, former Governor of Ohio (1939-1945) and U.S. Senator (1947-1959).  The structure has a cast-in-place concrete core with a steel frame and limestone facade. It is part of a 454,000 gross square foot facility that includes an eight-level parking garage, a full basement level, and mechanical penthouse. The Bricker FB contains offices for the Internal Revenue Service, Housing & Urban Development, Department of Agriculture, Social Security Administration and U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown. This repair and alteration project will consolidate the Judiciary’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court (USBC) and the Department of Justice-U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) from over 51,000 usable square feet (USF) of leased space in the Columbus area to approximately 25,000 USF in the Bricker FB. The project will meet the long-term housing needs of the USBC, decrease the Federal Government’s reliance on leased space, reduce federally owned vacant space, and improve space utilization in the Bricker Federal Building. The project will create two USBC courtrooms on the 1st floor and three chambers, clerk space, and support spaces on the 7th floor. A freight elevator will be used to securely join the court’s space. The project also includes the relocation of 800 USF of USMS Court Security Office from leased space.  The project also intends to renovate the first floor entrance lobby as part of the GSA’s First Impressions Program. Renovations include a refresh of the space and new building screening to meet USMS security requirements. As part of the interior space alterations, HVAC, electrical, and plumbing upgrades required to house the USBC in the building will be completed.  This is a Design Excellence project, managed by the United States General Services Administration (GSA).
Design Achievement - Bibbins Hall, the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music’s main teaching building with 40 studios and 10 classrooms, opened its doors in 1964. The building was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, best known as the architect of the original World Trade Center building. In order to accommodate growth, the Conservatory needed to find space for a new recital and performance hall within the iconic complex that would exhibit excellent acoustic performance and isolation for ensemble recitals, serve as a multi-purpose daily-use classroom, and accommodate up to 65 occupants. DLR Group’s design re-imagines this campus icon; providing a fresh approach to music education. The design solution replaces two classrooms and two offices on the top level of the existing building with a new double-height volume that appears as a simple frosted glass lantern from the exterior. This feature permits soft natural light into the performance space, while deferring to the reflection of the sky and existing formal language of the Yamasaki building for its image. In the evening, it gives the creative activity of the musicians inside visibility from the outside. Facing Tappan Square, Bibbins Hall embodies much of the city’s collective landscape and is subject to historic landmarks design oversight. Scope Summary - This multi-phased renovation of a music building encompassed an aggregate of 42,000 SF (Phase I: 11,000 SF; Phase II: 2,000 SF; Phase III: 9,000 SF; Phase IV: 8,000 SF; Phase V: 4,300 SF). The Phase I second-floor renovation, completed in Fall 2012, included the overhaul of mechanical, electrical and technology infrastructure; addition of new windows; and update of classrooms, teaching studios, and rare instrument storage areas. The Phase II main third-floor renovation, completed in Fall 2013, provided larger classrooms, developed daylight infused performance and teaching studios and a glass lantern that pierces the roof. The Phase III renovation, completed in Fall 2014, encompassed the remainder of the third floor, including corridors, faculty offices, teaching studios, and two classrooms. Phase IV, completed in Fall 2016, and Phase V, completed in 2017, remodels the first floor and re-designs new, ADA compliant entryways. DLR Group provided: architecture, MEP and structural engineering, information transport, and audiovisual design services.
Design Achievement - On the Erie VA Medical Center campus, veterans requiring long-term skilled nursing care were being housed in a former acute care hospital setting. The Erie VA Community Living Center is an initiative of the Veteran’s Administration to provide resident-centered long-term nursing home care for veterans in a non-hospital setting. DLR Group’s design process included staff and residents to achieve the goals of the VA Medical Center. Evidence-based design resulted in a facility that supports a resident-centered model, where medical care is driven by the needs and preferences of the resident and involves the resident directly in care decisions. Scope Summary - DLR Group master-planned the northwest corner of the hospital site, formerly administrative buildings, to accommodate four single-story buildings totaling 53,000 SF of living space. Each building or “household” includes 13 private bedrooms and bathrooms; shared living, dining, and kitchen space, and separate service entries for food, linens, equipment, and staff. The buildings are interconnected via a system of passageways. Effort was made to maintain the existing park-like setting and incorporate a residental scale. The gable-framed buildings are evocative of the surrounding residential neighborhood that includes unique, residential architecture dating from the 1930s. Site improvements included adding courtyards and a new shared drop-off area. The building was designed to LEED Silver standards. DLR Group provided architecture, mechanical, electrical, structural, and IT/AV services.
Design Achievement – Featuring the historic Yuma Theatre and highlighting a new museum, the Yuma Art Center is a unified performing and visual arts center that is managed by the Arts and Culture Division of the City of Yuma, Arizona. The Center serves the community and region as an “arts incubator” for over 90 arts and cultural organizations and is an attraction supporting the continued revitalization of Yuma’s downtown. DLR Groups design upgrades the 1912 theater, renovates an adjoining building for art studios and classrooms, and provides new space for art galleries and administrative offices in a contemporary building compatible with the historic character of Main Street. The design finds connections between the new museum infill construction and the historic theater, and celebrates their common elements. A one story loggia continues the tradition of the majority of buildings in the historic district while providing shelter from the harsh sun. The new building’s upper story is a contemporary interpretation of its historic context, related by color and material, proportioning systems, rhythm of fenestration, and details such as the cornice. The interiors strongly relate to the region, with very light, natural finishes such as bamboo floors. Scope Summary – The new, two-story museum building houses a spacious central lobby entrance, four galleries dedicated to fine art, an event catering kitchen, two classrooms, photography darkroom, administrative office space, conference room, gift shop, and support including load-in, crating, and art handling area. In the galleries, different volumes and proportions accommodate a variety of art installations and careful consideration of sun control and shading protects artwork from Yuma’s incredibly harsh light. Upper clerestory windows, configured and angled in various ways, scoop in northern light and a six-foot wide skylight runs the entire length of the building, providing diffuse natural light that bounces off folded walls and ceiling. The existing 1950’s United Building to the south was renovated to accommodate a multi-purpose room for artist lectures, studios, demonstrations, and artist-in-residency programs. A courtyard, located at the rear of the United Building, links the Art Center with outdoor space for pre-events, performance intermissions, and small gatherings. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP engineering, interior design, energy conservation, historic preservation, and theater technical consulting services.
Design Achievement – Constructed between 1905 and 1910 in the Beaux Arts style, the Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse is one of the country’s finest legacies treasured for its lavish spaces, exquisite murals, and finely detailed ornamentation. A National Historic Landmark structure, the building is one of the most significant landmarks in downtown Cleveland and is a key element anchoring the economic revival of the central core of the city. Selected through the GSA’s Design Excellence program, DLR Group’s renovation meets new requirements for function, efficiency, accessibility, sustainability, and security, while respecting the historic character of the structure. The project developed four courtrooms for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, preserved two courtrooms for the U.S. District Court, and developed tenant space in the balance of the landmark. The design concept solves modern circulation issues and internal organization requirements, while upholding and reclaiming the building’s historic circulation system. The conversion of the original light well into a central atrium – a five-level in-fill light court – captures opportunities for public access and space in the center of the building. Spanned entirely by a new skylight, the light court is the centerpiece of the design, solving circulation problems and increased security requirements, while imbuing the space with a spark of vitality. Scope Summary – The award-winning 235,632 SF rehabilitation project included space alterations, circulation improvements, and complete replacement of HVAC, electrical, fire/life safety, security, alarm, and communications systems, all sensitively designed to minimize impact on the landmark structure. Integrating sustainability, modernization, and preservation, the project was the first adaptive re-use project in the GSA’s inventory to achieve LEED-NC certification. The project was part of a Solid Waste Reduction pilot program developed in collaboration with Cuyahoga County. Aggressive waste reduction was incorporated into all phases of the project, resulting in the recycling of more than 4,000 tons of material, 70 percent of all waste produced by the project. All of this created a financial benefit to the project of nearly $110,000. Under GSA’s Fine Arts Program, 35 murals depicting the history and development of mail delivery and executed in 1911 by American artist Francis Davis Millet (1846-1912), were conserved, restored, and reinstalled. The project met the Secretary of Interior Standards for Rehabilitation. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP engineering, interior design, historic preservation, and LEED consulting services.
Design Achievement - A decade long partnership with Parker Hannifin involving multiple projects at its world headquarters in the United States rendered DLR Group the perfect match to execute the design of its European Headquarters relocation. Moving from England to Switzerland, this Fortune 500 company envisioned a new building and interiors that reflect Swiss hallmarks of precision and transparency, while serving as a dramatic showcase to attract visitors and staff. In response, DLR Group designed a building with an elemental and minimalist expression, rooted in regional building characteristics and connected to its site. Stucco and glass float above foundations and extended landscaping walls of native limestone. The lightly hued skin interacts with the constantly shifting natural light common to Lake Geneva, creating a building that undergoes subtle changes in appearance. The board room, placed on the second level over the entry, has a private terrace with dramatic views to the lake and Alps. The building’s placement on the site further maximizes views to the lake. The office component is located in a long, narrow bar with a skin of floor to ceiling glass. This strategy maximizes exposure to natural light and views for all employees. The interior palette, although more minimal than that of the client’s Cleveland World Headquarters, is still unmistakably of the corporate branding strategy. Crisply detailed natural stones, blonde woods, and lightly colored walls, floors, and ceilings set a distinctly Swiss tone. The headquarters have become a valuable tool for both sales and recruitment; the simplicity and spartan elegance reflect the engineering culture of the company, while the attention paid to the quality of workplace environment resonates with staff and candidates. Scope Summary - The 80,000 SF building provides workspace for 150 full time employees. It also serves as a conference, marketing, and public relations facility, with a significant volume of visitors. A pavilion skinned in stucco and glass houses amenity functions including entry, exhibit, board room, meeting rooms and food service. The curtain wall system is triple glazed with internal motorized louvers to ameliorate energy consumption. The use of color and material was so well received by the client that it prompted our formation of an international master palette for both interior and exterior design. Organized and accessible via digital format, the reference manual identifies a palette framework and customization choices for Parker Hannifin’s North America, Europe and Asia facilities. DLR Group provided architecture, interior design (including FFE), and design standards for the project.
Design Achievement – With the principal façade canted about the centerline and a large, portico-like entrance, this new high security office building addresses the street in a dignified fashion. With a philosophy rooted on how architecture influences people and their attitudes toward work and the environment, DLR Group’s design takes its cue for massing, materials, and coloration from important structures in Knoxville. The centrally located, two-story entrance portico, clad in granite, is flanked on each side by symmetrical wings. A regular rhythm of windows placed within an articulated precast facade provides a sense of scale and proportion appropriate to the building. With security and access concerns of paramount importance, the design addresses required setbacks, as well as blast resistance and progressive collapse for the façade, windows, and structural frame. Interior openness and maximized daylight enhance the quality of the workspace environment. Scope Summary – The project created a formidable four-story, 115,150 SF office building that provides an office-like appearance within a state-of-the-art high-security complex. Safety and security measures include a rated perimeter fence system, surveillance equipment, sensitive compartmented information facilities (SCIFs), vehicular control devices, and selective landscape placement and plant selections. All mechanical and electrical systems are designed for redundancy and reliability above the required program of requirements. Advanced sustainable design concepts feature energy-efficient lighting and passive infrared and ultrasonic occupancy sensing lighting controls, daylight harvesting, and demand controlled ventilation. The complex includes a 165-car parking structure and a 20,000 SF annex building. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP and structural engineering, interior design, lighting design, LEED consultation, and construction administration services.
Design Achievement – The Cleveland Clinic selected DLR Group for a comprehensive facilities assessment of 41 buildings totaling more than 1.3 million SF at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical Center in Abu Dhabi. The key challenge of this project was that all field work had to be completed within five working days. After work commenced, the design team evaluated an additional 16 clinic buildings throughout Abu Dhabi totaling 550,000 SF. Once field work was completed, a complete facilities assessment report was submitted within 60 days. The final deliverable also included a strategic 20-year master plan for the Sheikh Khalifa Medical City that defined a phasing/implementation/budget plan to guide management decisions. The firm also developed design concepts for a new 2,000,000 SF medical complex in Abu Dhabi to serve the local United Arab Emirates populace and the Royal family. Scope Summary - The primary deliverable of this project was a comprehensive assessment of 51 buildings totaling more than 2,000,000 SF. Assessment included architectural, medical, mechanical, electrical, structural, and all other systems on a 100-acre main campus site, and ancillary assessments of facilities throughout Abu Dhabi. DLR Group provided master planning, facility assessment, medical programming and planning, architecture, mechanical and electrical engineering, and interior design.
Design Achievement – The design of the curtain wall-clad Twinsburg Family Health Center rises out of a park-like setting absorbing and reflecting the landscape and natural light. The result is an iconic structure that uses its natural surroundings to create dynamic views and connections to nature. To support its healing environment, the design provides inspirational views to a 30-acre nature conservancy with wildflowers and tall native grasses, and bordering orchard. In concert with the transparent exterior, the serene interior architecture gently introduces a new generation of room standards for Cleveland Clinic facilities. The medical clinics are designed with an ‘on-stage’ – ‘off-stage’ paradigm that separates public and staff/medical/service activities, a pattern which is used throughout the facility. The exam room standards developed for this project employ flexibility and adaptability allowing for change without significant expense. The project pairs environmentally sensitive, sustainable design with the needs of a world-class medical facility. Carefully contrasted in scale, materiality, program function, and code occupancy classification, the two rectangular volumes read as one harmonious care facility. Scope Summary – Developed on an environmentally sensitive, 80-acre suburban site adjacent to Interstate 480, the siting of this first phase 190,000 SF building was informed by the topography and governed by the limits of disturbance to wetlands and natural rock outcroppings established by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. At site entry, a landscaped roadway carved into a hill descends to a meadow which is flanked the main entrance and emergency entrance to the LEED Gold facility. The five-story Family Health Center is classified as a business occupancy and contains medical clinics, a rehab gym, pharmacy, offices, a community room, and café. Ambulatory surgery, imaging, and the emergency department are located in the two-story masonry-clad Ambulatory Surgery Center, which has an institutional occupancy, allowing for a future expansion into a second phase acute care hospital. DLR Group provided master planning, programming, and conceptual design services for the entire site as well as architecture, interior design, MEP engineering, structural engineering, IT/Telecom, and LEED administration services for the first phase.
Design Achievement - The Pittsburgh Playhouse is a new academic performing arts and media center on Point Park University’s downtown Pittsburgh campus. DLR Group’s design provides state-of-the-art facilities for four performance companies, including the Conservatory of Performing Arts, which was recently ranked No. 8 on playbill.com’s list of the Top Colleges Currently Represented on Broadway, and No. 3 on OnStage’s list of the Top 10 BFA Dance Programs in the country. Situated on 1.5 acres in an urban district with many landmark structures, the new complex is an addition to two historic structures – the University Center designed by Frederick J. Osterling, and the Stock Exchange Building designed by Charles M. Bartberger. The new work architecturally complements its historic, setting and includes a 6,000-SF garden court flanking the entry and lobby. This two-story outdoor plaza and colonnade features three former Forbes Avenue facades that have been meticulously reconstructed as major focal points of the design. The tight urban site created a planning challenge for the proscenium stage, requiring the venue to abut the sidewalk and preclude conventional access from the rear of the theater. In response to this constraint, DLR Group’s design features an audience chamber with patron access from the side of the theater and an asymmetrical seating arrangement that responds to patron flow. Large windows, with black out capabilities for performances, flood the room with daylight when it is used as a teaching space, allowing passersby to glimpse activity within and enlivening the street façade. Scope Summary – The project features three new theaters: a 561-seat proscenium/thrust main stage; a 212-seat multi-form theater, and a 102-seat black box space in 80,000 SF of new construction. The building also houses a sound stage and sound editing suites; scenery, prop, paint, and costume shops; a television studio; cinema edit labs; a screening room; scenic design and general classrooms; rehearsal halls; acting studios; faculty offices; performer support; and public amenities. Variable enclosures within the multi-form theater and the main stage allow these venues to play to the urban neighborhood. Other labs, shops, and studios are also exposed to the internal circulation system and to the street itself, communicating the vitality of fabrication, experimentation, and creativity. The project also involved master planning in 85,000 SF of existing construction and renovation of 35,000 SF. DLR Group provided master planning, architecture, interiors, MEP + structural engineering, LEED, theater technical, acoustics, IT / telecom design.
Design Achievement – In the midst of a major capital improvement program, the University of Mount Union identified a number of facility needs to meet its strategic initiatives. One critical and highly visible component was a new Welcome Center, the first experience many prospective students and their families would have of the institution. DLR Group’s design projects an image of gracious hospitality while referencing architectural forms and materials from existing campus buildings. Sited on the main campus lawn next to the campus lakes, the new Welcome Center serves as the main threshold to the campus. Building materials of red brick, white trim, gray roof, limestone sill, and design components of oriel windows, cupola, gables, and masonry pattern work reference the campus’ heritage. The central double height rotunda, an octagonal waiting area and tower element, echo Chapman Hall, the oldest building on campus. The building is sited to take advantage of its picturesque view of the campus: four interview rooms, the waiting area, and conference room directly overlook the campus lake and 92% of regularly occupied spaces have access to substantial daylight and views to the campus. The Welcome Center achieved LEED Silver certification, reflecting the institution’s commitment to sustainability initiatives. Scope Summary – Designed for the University’s Admissions Services Department, the 8,500 SF building contains offices for Admissions and Student Financial Services leadership and staff, as well as family interview rooms, conference space, and a central reception and waiting space. An efficient two-story footprint with a lowered building mass utilizes an English basement model to maintain daylight in all spaces. The Welcome Center includes a 20-ton geothermal system, estimated to reduce energy consumption by approximately 30% compared to conventional heating and cooling systems. DLR Group provided architectural, MEP and structural engineering design services, as well as LEED consulting and commissioning.
Design Achievement - Soothing views to nature, thoughtfully organized fixtures and equipment, and carefully chosen and placed artwork create an experience of visual and sonic tranquility at the Cleveland Clinic Brunswick Family Health Center Emergency Department. DLR Group's award-winning design serves as a canvas and frame for the seasonally-changing landscape and light of northeast Ohio. Inside and out, the composition of elements is measured and artistically achieved with an economy of moves. Using a chromatic and texturally Spartan aesthetic approach to absorb and reflect the dynamic transformation of the natural surroundings, the design evades the static and repetitive institutional experience. Free of decorative motifs, the serene and healing environment alleviates anxiety and promotes ease of wayfinding with the poetic illumination of light from ample floor-to-floor glazing. This LEED Silver (pending) project balances environmentally sensitive, sustainable development with the needs of a world-class healthcare facility.   Scope Summary - The two-story 40,000 SF addition was seamlessly connected to the Cleveland Clinic Brunswick Family Health Center with minimal disruption of operations in the occupied building. The corner connection created a convenient public drop off and parking area for the new emergency department. The first story is approximately 22,500 SF and includes an appropriately-sized processing lab and an imaging department. The design employs the use of a four-bed ‘split flow’ for non-emergent patients, and 12 exam rooms configured around a central core that serves as a multidisciplinary work station for emergency department staff. Convenient access to Imaging and the rooftop helistop are directly adjacent to exam area. The second story of the new construction consists of approximately 17,000 GSF of shell space with planning considerations to include exam rooms and offices. Design choices upheld Cleveland Clinic’s commitment to sustainability and achieved LEED for Healthcare Silver certification. DLR Group provided architecture, programming, interior design, structural engineering, and LEED documentation services.
Design Achievement - Oberlin College is a four-year, liberal arts college that is noted for its academic excellence, its historical commitment to social engagement and diversity, and its artistic climate on campus. The College retained DLR Group to master plan the development of a downtown block in order to create a College and Community Green Arts District. This mixed-use development, including retail, commercial and hospitality components, will be a LEED certified block that will set the standard for environmental and economic sustainability while fostering town-gown social engagement and cultural diversity through the arts. Scope Summary - Through a comprehensive feasibility study and planning process, DLR Group identified recommended program uses informed by market and demographics data. These uses may include residential, conference, performance/arts, office, commercial and parking. The firm investigated options for maximizing reuse and conversion of existing facilities and plan for environmentally-sensitive architecture, landscape and systems engineering. DLR Group established design standards that are appropriate to the bucolic Ohio landscape and that respect the lineage of significant architecture on campus. Finally, the study developed budget projections and implementation strategies for the economically viable development of the site. The College has implemented several of the projects in the Master Plan including the renovation of the Apollo Theatre for the Cinema Studies program (completed) and the Hall Auditorium / Adaptable Theatre project for the Department of Theatre (in design), both designed by DLR Group. DLR Group provided master planning services.
Design Achievement - In a partnership that was the first of its kind in the nation, WVIZ/PBS and 90.3 WCPN ideastream (affiliates of National Public Radio and Public Television) and the Playhouse Square Foundation joined forces to co-locate within a single facility integrating broadcast media, performing arts, and education programs. The project involved the adaptive re-use of a National Register Landmark building that is part of Playhouse Square, the nation’s largest renovated historic district and an institution with which DLR Group has worked for more than 35 years. DLR Group’s architectural concept for the new facility inserts a contemporary and highly flexible design into the existing historic building. The new facility physically embodies the partnership of its broadcast media, performing arts, and education tenants. It captures the efficiencies of shared resources, spaces and technology, resulting in reduced construction and operating costs. Idea Center exposes its programmatic components allowing multi-level activities and movement to be readily visible at street level. The design fosters connectivity and interaction, and leverages a highly visible, street-front location on the main corridor of the city’s commercial, retail, and entertainment district to bring a new, dynamic vitality to Cleveland’s urban core. Scope Summary - Originally constructed in 1912, the seven-story structure totals 246,000 GSF. The project scope included the adaptive reuse of the building’s first two floors and lower level. Approximately 47,000 SF of the project's 90,000 SF is used for public service, educational programming, and performances. An extensive feasibility and planning process by DLR Group demonstrated the economies of sharing commonly programmed spaces and reduced the project size by 30,000 SF, resulting in significant cost savings. The facility includes radio and television broadcast facilities, a dance studio, and the 300-seat Studio Theater, a highly flexible black box with state-of-the-art performance and television broadcast capabilities. The facility’s lower level features work areas, classrooms, distance learning suites, and large, open activity rooms. Technology integrated throughout the spaces supports multimedia production and the ability to live stream. Engineering systems meet high-performance demands of sophisticated communication and technology uses, while also complying with LEED standards and withstanding stringent value engineering evaluations for optimal payback. The project achieved LEED CI Silver certification and was honored with a sustainability award from the International Downtown Association. DLR Group provided feasibility analysis, programming/planning, architecture, interior design, MEP and structural engineering, LEED/sustainable design, theater technical, historic preservation, and historic/lost development rights tax credit consultation.
Design Achievement - The Cleveland Browns ownership was in the process of adopting a new collaborative working model that blends football and business operations. Its training complex and offices represented an opportunity to exemplify this new approach. DLR Group’s design welcomes employees, players, coaches, and visitors to an open and democratic work environment that is transparent and filled with daylight. The modern space is respectful of the legacy and tradition of the Cleveland Browns, projects energy and vitality, and forges a progressive identity for the team. This progressive identity is a manifold expression, experienced through large-scale imagery, branding, materiality, contour, and broad sweeps of color. All of these considerations fuse to propel the staff into a newly energized way of working together and representing the team. Scope Summary - The award-winning project involved the complete renovation of the second level of the facility, approximately 37,000 SF, and partial renovation of the first floor. Aside from maintaining an existing IT room, phone room, and game video editing suite, as well as stair and elevator cores, the entire floor was demolished down to the shell and structural frame. The new work environment houses 160 staff (50 of whom were previously located at Cleveland Brown Stadium), including executives, financial and legal, coaches, player personnel staff and scouts, corporate sales, ticket sales, marketing, content production, creative services, community outreach, and information technology. The new space contains approximately 60 hard-wall offices and 90 workstations, all right-sized for modern efficiency and collaboration. Unique spaces include a new Draft Room, Call Center, and Radio + Video Studio for team content production. The design and construction schedule was timed to complete prior to the start of Training Camp: an aggressive two months of design and four months of construction. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP and structural engineering, interior design, and technology design services.
Home to the Lake County Captains, a single "A" affiliate to the Cleveland Indians, Classic Park opened to large crowds and rave reviews. The ballpark has a total seating capacity of 7,273, including 5,400 box seats, and bleacher and grass bermed seating for 1,000. The design also incorporates 20 luxury suites, picnic areas, a playground and fun zone for kids, and a team retail store. A future mixed-use development sharing the site will connect the facility to Eastlake’s main commercial street. The development will house a bank, concessions and restaurants, a novelty shop and office space.
Design Achievement – As it looked to its 100th anniversary, this private K-12 school planned a significant capital expansion to accommodate an expanding high school program with a physical space supporting the school’s forward-focused educational mission. DLR Group’s award-winning design gives expression to a highly progressive educational vision with a mix of open and flexible learning spaces, encouraging an innovative curriculum and hands-on learning. The new Stirn Hall draws inspiration from its formerly agrarian historic estate and the barns which were located on the site until 1977. This building without corridors extends the white-on-white character of the existing Gates Mills Upper School, integrating different building components to take advantage of the variety of campus landscapes. The design intent creates a building composed of classrooms and commons spaces of diverse scale and character, distributed loosely throughout the floor plates. This loose organization of spaces provides a seamlessness between the varied experiences and modes of learning that mark the day of a student – from classrooms for lecture, application, inquiry, to open collaboration spaces and social commons for the exchange of ideas. The program encompasses three distinct kinds of spaces: Making (Biology, Science, and Fabrication Labs) oriented to the woods and creek, Sharing (commons, auditoria, and social spaces) with views of the meadow, and Inquiry (classrooms, offices, and humanities) oriented to a new Orchard. Students circulate between learning spaces through gracious commons areas filled with natural light and views to the landscape that defines the campus. The invigorating Stirn Hall supports new ways of learning and teaching, even those that haven’t been thought of yet. Scope Summary – The project consists of 35,000 SF renovation and 50,000 SF addition to an existing campus serving 500 students in grades 9-12. The school now encompasses 36 classrooms and nearly 110,000 SF, a 30% increase in size. Renovated and expanded classrooms reflect the innovative schedule, program, and teaching styles of this progressive program. Classrooms and social spaces are clustered around a two-story core structure containing central services such as college counseling, a writing center, and snack bar. Learning spaces accommodate student movement, engagement, and small group activities. Teaching spaces are utilized as laboratories for hands-on, participatory and group learning. New specialty spaces, including a Fabrication Laboratory, a Media Laboratory, Media Production Studio, and a Screening Room, will further support Hawken’s forward-focused curriculum with the expansion of programs such as Entrepreneurship and Media Studies so that students acquire real world skills. The building also includes a new science wing to support Hawken’s commitment to deepening the student experience, including the growth of independent scientific study options and the expansion of the STEAM Pathways program. Designed for flexibility, the open plan and multi-function areas provide ease of modifying space as needs and pedagogical program evolve. Energy efficiency measures include high performance glass and wall assemblies, energy recovery devices in the dedicated outdoor air systems, 92% thermal efficiency boilers, variable frequency drives on pumps, and premium efficiency motors. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP and structural engineering, theater technical, audiovisual, information transport, acoustics services.
Design Achievement – Case Western Reserve University is one of the nation’s highest ranked schools for social work. The University was interested in renovating its Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences to accommodate growing academic programs and to support a new, flexible and collaborative instructional style. DLR Group’s design updates a dark, compartmentalized 1980s-era building with a transparent and collaborative environment for intellectual exchange between students, faculty, and visitors. The building’s fundamental circulation system is transformed to provide open pathways and a dynamic interaction of space. Leveraging the School’s own practice of creating Ability-Based Learning Environments, the renovated facility creates a number of flexible spaces for students and researchers to work as individuals and in small groups. An expanded glass curtainwall brings natural light deep into the building, while a light-colored palette and modern furnishings mark the program with sophisticated professionalism. Scope Summary – This project encompasses a 3,720 SF atrium-style lobby addition and renovation of 32,440 SF of existing space. The first floor renovation includes relocation of the library, two new seminar rooms, and two flexible classroom learning spaces. The second and third floor renovations create flexible, collaborative work space for researchers and research centers. The project was designed to exceed LEED Silver certification. DLR Group provided architecture, interior design, MEP and structural engineering design, and IT services.
Design Achievement - The new $27 million Center for Creative Arts (designed by Robert P. Madison International) houses the Recording Arts and Technology and Media Arts and Studies programs at Cuyahoga Community College’s Metro Campus in downtown Cleveland. The new training facility includes $4.2 million worth of sophisticated audiovisual technology designed and specified by DLR Group’s Innovative Technology Design Group. The goals for the technology design were to give students a high level of sophisticated technology in their course work while providing the ability to send signal from “anywhere to anywhere.” The solution involved complete fiber and twisted pair matrix routing, state-of-the-art audio distribution using ultra-low latency devices and state-of-the-art video distribution using the Aviom Pro64 network distribution system selected for its flexibility, ease of use and reconfiguration for an educational environment. This project received a 2010 Pro AV Spotlight Award for audiovisual systems. Scope Summary – This project involved the technology design for a full complement of technical spaces including: two full recording studios, five production control rooms, seven high technology audio and video classrooms, dance and theater rehearsal studios, and seven video editing suites. The facility also features a multi-purpose black box theater and video production sound stage and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Ar-chives and Library. Every technical room in the four-story building has multi-channel capabilities. The new technology allows up to 32 channels of audio and distribution to as many as six different recording control rooms at the same time. The flexibility allows input or output racks to be rolled in, and a cable plugged into a production panel without ground loops, signal loss, or degradation. Students can work in small groups in each control room and get their own feed of audio to capture and mix, all live. DLR Group provided audiovisual, information transport, and security design for the project.
Design Achievement – As a component of a $100 million campaign to update facilities across the campus, the University of Mount Union wished to renovate the existing Wilson Science Hall into a classroom and lab building that would accommodate its new engineering program. DLR Group transformed an existing academic building, constructed in the 1950s, into an energy-efficient, modern facility supporting the Department of Engineering and the Department of Economics, Accounting and Business Administration programs. Many existing lab and classroom spaces were renovated in place, while other spaces were re-configured for faculty offices. A new two-story glazed lobby with suspended student lounge adjacent to the main entry creates a welcoming and transparent presence on the main campus lawn. All windows were replaced with higher-performing glazing systems bringing natural daylight to nearly all of the teaching and gathering spaces. Scope Summary – Work at the Engineering and Business Building entailed a feasibility study and a subsequent interior renovation and partial reconfiguration of a 22,300 SF academic building. The new program includes five engineering labs, a computer lab, two lecture halls, a conference room, student lounge, small group study areas, and 21 faculty offices. Renovation work involved the replacement of all mechanical, electrical, IT, and fire protection systems with more efficient and effective systems. Light and occupancy sensors were deployed in every space. Low-emitting finishes and finish materials were used throughout the building. The renovation was designed to meet LEED Silver standards but did not seek formal certification. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP and structural engineering, and interior design services.
Design Achievement - Originally built in 1913 as an 840-seat, single-screen movie house, the Apollo Theatre is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Oberlin Historic Downtown District. Oberlin College purchased the property in an effort to keep the historic venue alive as a first-run movie house, while providing new space for the College's Cinema Studies Program and for community events and performances. DLR Group's design preserves the local landmark's architectural uniqueness, while providing contemporary function and amenities. Honoring the venue's status as one of the oldest existing cinemas to consistently maintain original function, the project restores and reconstructs historic details throughout. In the main auditorium removal of 1950s-era distressed wall treatments revealed decorative wall patterns, dating from the late 1930s. The project reconstructs the historic patterns using new, absorptive materials that enhance acoustic performance to contemporary standards. Recreation of the 1950s-era marquee, which was in disrepair, uses original neon lighting where functional, and replacements where broken. Scope Summary - The multi-phased renovation encompassed 20,547 SF. Phase 1 focused on meeting building code and ADA requirements, adding digital projection and sound, and expanding the lobby (reducing auditorium seating to 500). Phase 2 added a multi-media center for the College’s Cinema Studies Program, including a new suite of classrooms, labs, and offices. The suite comprises: a post production lab, multi-purpose studio, video editing room, flatwork animation room, two recording isolation booths, a sound booth, and new projection rooms for both the existing main auditorium and a new smaller, 60-seat film screening room located in former retail space on the first floor. The historic main auditorium was also upgraded with new seating and finishes, 35 mm film and 3-D cinema projection, and THX 5.2 surround sound capabilities. Audiovisual signal can be transmitted across the campus single-mode fiber system to other performance venues. Utilizing Preservation Tax Incentives and New Market Credits, the renovation was subject to review and approval of the Ohio Preservation Office and the National Park Service. The project targeted LEED Silver certification. DLR Group provided architecture, interior design, MEP and structural engineering, audiovisual, acoustics, security, information transport/telecommunications, historic tax credit documentation, and LEED coordination services.
Design Achievement - This new market-rate housing complex is situated in the Hough Neighborhood directly across the street from the main entrance to the Cleveland Clinic’s medical campus. The development goal was to leverage the prosperity of the Greater University Circle area to revitalize, re-energize, reinvigorate, and respect the Hough neighborhood. The project was one of the first developments to be designed within the City of Cleveland’s Healthy Community Design Principles Guidelines. These tenets include: promoting physical activity and a healthy lifestyle, improving air quality and resource conservation, and creating a safe environment that encourages social interaction. Originally challenged by the city’s building height restrictions, the development’s mid-rise scale serves as a transition from the institutional, high-rise character of its prominent neighbor to the south and the low-rise residential neighborhood to the north. The building is surrounded with wide, landscaped walks and planters to provide gathering and dining spaces. A vehicular and pedestrian open arcade connects through the building to the neighborhood beyond. The design’s extensive use of glass combined with the vertical expression of two shades of light brick conveys positive feelings of openness, optimism, and a fresh beginning. Scope Summary - This mixed-use development is being constructed in two phases via Design-Build delivery and contains 300+ studio, one, and two bedroom apartments, as well as retail and offices in 360,000 SF of new construction on a 4.65-acre site. The ground floor and the two story tenant lobby are primarily retail use. Tenant amenities include a fitness center overlooking the lobby, as well as a shaded south-facing, open-air deck on the top floor with an adjacent community room with views of Lake Erie. A number of sustainable design elements were integrated into the design, including operable windows for natural ventilation, external sun shading on southern exposure, low-flow plumbing fixtures, LED lighting fixtures, storm water retention on site, and permeable pavement. Targeting LEED NC Silver certification, the project sets the bar for sustainable design for future development within the Hough neighborhood. The project is on an accelerated schedule with Phase 1 completing in July 2015 and Phase 2 currently underway. DLR Group provided master planning, architecture, MEP and structural engineering, and IT design services through construction administration for Phase I and through design development for Phase 2.
Design Achievement - Built in 1963, the existing Austin Hall Science Center located on the Lake Erie College campus was in need of renovation. DLR Group’s design for the updated building creates a facility that is both a model of environmentally-responsible design, and a place where students and teachers can come together to engage in advanced, cutting-edge science education programs. The exterior of the updated Austin Hall Science Center, once a stark and Brutalist-style façade, now complements the traditional style of architecture across the campus, as red brick and stone details replace steel, concrete, and pre-cast wall panels. Upgraded modern classrooms, state-of-the-art laboratory spaces, and an expansive lecture hall serve the College’s chemistry, math, environmental science, and pre-veterinarian programs, and enable the Science Center to serve as a “hub” for student-led field studies in San Salvador and the Bahamas. Each floor of the building includes an open common area where students and faculty can gather, relax, and share information in an informal setting. Scope Summary - The project encompassed improvements to approximately 25,500 SF of space across two building floors. This included the creation of nine laboratories, five classrooms, and offices for use by math and science department faculty members. The building’s exterior was stripped down to the bare structure, and re-built to accommodate modern classroom and laboratory spaces. On the exterior, the pre-cast concrete panels were removed and a new exterior wall of red brick, double-hung windows, and stone details was constructed to complement the aesthetic of nearby college buildings. A new elevator was installed to provide improved handicapped accessibility as well as make transporting supplies to all floors of the building easier. The project also included all new furnishings, lab tables, and lab hoods. DLR Group provided integrated architecture, MEP and structural engineering, interior design, and technology design services.
Design Achievement – The Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion Health Education Campus is a partnership project between the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University. This new facility allows medical, nursing, dental, and physician assistant students to learn, study, and dine together. By placing these disciplines under one roof, students develop a shared language. Together, they foster the communication and collaboration that’s required in the fast-paced field of healthcare. This state-of-the-future campus features architectural, curricular, and technological innovations that are destined to elevate healthcare by transforming how students learn and collaborate. Scope – The 477,000-SF facility is located on an 11-acre site on Cleveland Clinic’s main campus and accommodates approximately 2,300 students. The facility features a mixture of lecture halls, classrooms, skills labs, administrative and office workstations, meeting rooms, conference rooms, and staff spaces organized around communal spaces. The ground floor features a large open atrium that functions as an assembly point, circulation zone, library, catering area, and simulation space. Upper floors include educational spaces, simulation and anatomy labs, administrative offices and large study areas. This project achieved LEED Gold certification. DLR Group served as architect of record and structural engineer of record in collaboration with design architect Foster+Partners on a project team of approximately 20 consultants.
NOT TO DLR GROUP STANDARD The country’s 18th oldest continuously operating theater, the Struthers Library Theatre required multiple restoration efforts to continue it’s successful programming. In the early 1880s Warren was a small industrial town on the Allegheny River when Thomas Struthers, attorney and developer, commissioned a NYC architect to design a library and opera house for the growing population. It immediately became the pride of the community. A century later the Struthers Library Theatre was showing films to less than 10 patrons and renting the space to Kiwanis travelogues. In 1980 some concerned citizens challenged the town to raise $300,000 to save the theater. The community responded by pledging more than $400,000, with dozens of citizens volunteering alongside the restoration professionals. The effort led to a new sound stage, updated lighting, new curtains and dressing rooms, reupholstered seats, re-plastering, painting, and reapplication of the original decorative stenciling. The Grand Centennial Celebration (1983) honored the dedication of a culturally committed community. After the restoration the theater hosted a popular professional summer theater season for 15 years. Unfortunately, this tapped the theater’s meager endowment which required them to abandon the summer programming. In 2007 the Struthers started a theater school. Warren Players, one of the country’s oldest performance troupes, joined the Struthers Theatre’s umbrella. The new residents dealt with a leaky building that was technologically outdated and in desperate need of utilities improvements. A newly hired executive director was mandated to raise money for capital improvements, expand the programming, and bring in revenue. What ensued completely changed the theater’s future. Despite economic challenges, the capital campaign raised just under $1.1 million in private donations. The project created two handicapped seating sections and many repairs and updates. The trustees, wanting to build sponsorship to create professional quality programming, approved a Celebrity Series plan of adding one major show annually. Because of this methodical brand building, the programming grew and the audience expanded from its parochial base to become a regional asset. Although with the programming successes, the inadequate seating and lack of accessibility became blatantly apparent. With another need for upgrades, the theater reached out to a DLR Group, a connection made through LHAT. Engaging professional architects and theatrical designers led to a new four-story elevator, interior retrofitting, a wheelchair lift into the library, roof replacement, new balcony seating, a new marquee, sidewalks, and retaining walls. The total cost was $2.75 million, an enormous challenge for a town under 10,000 people. But yet again the community responded and raised the money - proving that even after 135 years the Struthers Library Theatre is still the pride of the community.
Design Achievement - Situated among nearly 2,000 pristine acres that were once the site of the famed 1969 Woodstock Festival, the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts serves as an international cultural destination for the performing arts. DLR Group’s design for the award-winning facility expresses a strong sense of place befitting its iconic location. Designed to attract visitors from around the world, the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts creates an environment that continues the original festival’s welcoming quality, celebrating and complementing the iconic rural landscape and corresponding event that gave a generation its name. Stone, cedar, and copper were used throughout and selected because of their indigenous relationship to the area, resulting in a facility that blends both architecture and landscape and pays homage to the spirit of the site. Encompassing 18 structures on a site that incorporates the original 37-acre Yasgur farm, the project includes an outdoor amphitheater, an open-air pavilion, and a museum and event center, as well as support facilities and extensive landscape and site interpretation. Bethel Woods Center for the Arts was ranked #1 in attendance in New York State by Pollstar Magazine in its list of the Top 100 Worldwide Amphitheaters. Between 2006 and 2016, nearly 2 million people have visited the Center, boosting the state and regional economies. Scope Summary - Encompassing 127,000 SF of buildings, the project scope included the 4,800-seat main pavilion and the 18,000 SF museum / events center with gift shop, classrooms, research library and offices. Before initiating its design, DLR Group undertook master planning of the site, including coordination of complex issues such as crowd behavior/flow analysis, site lines, and campus-wide accessibility requirements. The firm then developed specific, sustainable engineering strategies to address the lack of infrastructure on the site, making use of geothermal systems in the museum / event center and addressing storm water management to reduce runoff. Designs also reduced heat islands on non-roof areas, minimized paved parking areas and provide shaded walkways. All of the stone for the project was extracted from quarries within view of the site and installed by local craftspeople; likewise, the laminated wood was fabricated in close proximity to the site. These design choices upheld the Center’s commitment to environmental conservation and provided positive economic development for the community. DLR Group provided integrated architecture and engineering design as well as theater technical and audiovisual design and museum planning for the project.
Design Achievement – As part of the continuing development of the cultural, civic, and convention center in the city's core, the City of Phoenix sought to modernize the aging Phoenix Symphony Hall, home of The Phoenix Symphony, Ballet Arizona, and Arizona Opera. DLR Group's design transforms the 1972 building into a world-class, 2,387-seat performing arts venue that meets the artistic and functional demands of its sophisticated 21st century audience and civic community. Selected finishes and design elements express the same design vocabulary and defining character as the existing concrete, Brutalist-style building. The geometric pattern of the new wood paneling in the lobby and the audience chamber lightens the character of the walls and adds interest while also enhancing acoustics. The design of the new custom lobby carpet evokes the repetitive squares of bold colors found in the magnificent grand curtain designed by Jack Lenor Larsen as well as the 45 degree angles used in the building plan. The result is a vibrant destination for Phoenix and a dramatically heightened experience for performers, audiences, and visitors. Scope Summary – The $18.5 million, 90,000 SF renovation involved a new grand entrance and expanded lobby, a reworked orchestra pit, dressing room and restroom upgrades, seating upgrades, new finishes, a new box office with six windows for faster and more convenient patron ticketing, a new service bar, refurbishment of existing concessions with new back bar and storage, and a new roof. The project also encompassed several ADA-compliant provisions, including new audience seating configuration to enhance ease of access, a new wheelchair seating section, and new elevators in the lobby. The seating configuration introduced two additional aisles and a new cross aisle. To minimize loss of seating due to the reconfiguration, the main floor was reshaped to accommodate an additional row. Upgrades to the HVAC, fire protection, security, and electrical systems maximize performance and were coordinated with the acoustician to meet criteria for acoustic quality. The voter-approved project, funded through the City of Phoenix Cultural Bond Program, was undertaken by the City in conjunction with the expansion and renovation of the Phoenix Convention Center, designed by HOK Venue in association with Leo A. Daly. DLR Group provided architecture, interior design, MEP engineering, theater technical, and lighting design services.
SEE 25-14061-06 for Main project narrative of restoration. PHASE 1 COMPLETED IN 2016 Structural reinforcement of the lower terrace. DESCRIPTION OF STUDY PRIOR TO IMPLEMENATION The Garfield Monument was built in 1889 in memory of James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States. The structure is located in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, an area near the Garfield family homestead. The monument is an imposing sandstone tower housing an equally impressive memorial hall and crypt below containing the caskets of President Garfield and his wife Lucretia. It has been called the country’s first true mausoleum. The monument is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1934. DLR Group was retained to assess the current conditions of the exterior and interior and make recommendations for its preservation. The final report included all recommendations and a preliminary cost estimate based on the restoration work described in the comprehensive historic structure report. Existing Conditions At almost 120 years old, restoration and cyclical maintenance were essential to avoid serious repairs in the foreseeable future. Prior to any preservation action, a comprehensive historic structure report was needed to establish the foundation for achieving the highest quality of preservation standards possible. Recommendations included tuckpointing 100%, window restoration, storm window installation, exterior surface cleaning, stone replacement at belt course and dressed stone areas, rebuild stone surfaces where excessively deteriorated or missing, replacement of upper and lower deck paving and water proofing systems, plumb lower level parapet stone walls, exterior door restoration, perimeter foundation water proofing and drainage and restoration of terra cotta friezes. Finally, we recommended that the effort to preserve the exterior should be coupled with a comprehensive evaluation and assessment of the interior materials, environment, structural, mechanical and electrical systems. Interior observations, beyond the scope of the exterior assessment, were made to review conditions and assess the impact of exterior preservation and restoration efforts.
Design Achievement - Building upon a rich history of constructing important civic buildings out of ubiquitous materials such as buff limestone, the new FBI Field Office incorporates a familiar palette of aesthetic materials that meet the requirements of a blast-resistant façade. With a keen understanding of the specialized program, DLR Group’s design sets the standard for environmentally friendly, high-security facility construction that allows plenty of room for growth. Bordered by landscaping from adjacent sites and a berm on the south side of the campus, the site design seamlessly integrates the office building with a secured parking structure and an annex building. A rhythm of columns, windows, and granite panels define the office façade, which consists of two rectangular volumes. The third level of the building features a recessed band of glazing capped by a deep overhanging metal panel cornice. The main public entrance and lobby, a two-story space with canopy, is professional without extravagance or unnecessary embellishment, reflecting the dignified mission of the FBI. The intuitive design of the office building offers users the ability to organize departments into a logical blocking plan with appropriate adjacencies. Scope Summary – The scope of work for this project included construction of a new three-structure public office complex with enhanced technological capabilities situated on a ten-acre site. The complex includes a 100,000 SF, three-story main office building, a 124-car parking structure, and a 22,000 SF annex building for vehicle maintenance. This secure facility features a blast-resistant envelope and structural capability to resist progressive collapse. Built with security in mind, special considerations include visitor screening facility, perimeter fencing, secure key entrances, radio frequency shielding, and SCIFs. All mechanical and electrical systems are designed for redundancy and reliability above the required program of requirements. Advanced sustainable design concepts feature energy-efficient lighting, passive infrared and ultrasonic occupancy sensing lighting controls, daylight harvesting, and demand controlled ventilation. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP and structural engineering, interior design, lighting design, LEED consulting, and construction administration services.
The Garfield Memorial, a towering 180-foot icon at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, opened in 1890. Built in memory of James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, the sandstone structure combines Romanesque, Gothic, and Byzantine architectural styles and houses a memorial hall and crypt below containing the caskets of President Garfield and his wife Lucretia. Five life-size bas relief panels depicting Garfield’s life and death appear on three sides of the tower’s square base. The monument is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1934. It has been called the country’s first true mausoleum. Nearing 125 years old, the monument required infrastructure and exterior repairs and restoration to remediate damage from wear and water and to avoid deterioration of the interior rotunda, its dramatic ceiling, detailed statuary, and tall stained-glass windows. DLR Group completed a preservation study, provided fundraising support, and implemented a series of exterior and infrastructure improvements based on prioritized recommendations and funding capacity. The completed scope of work included: structural reinforcement and rebuilding of five light wells at the lower deck; cleaning and stabilization of the structural steel; tucking point of exterior surfaces, sealing skyward facing joints; restoration of terra cotta frieze; rebuilding of worn and deteriorated decorative stone elements; and replacement of deteriorated stone. An additional group of projects, including replacing pavers and waterproofing the upper and lower decks, mechanical and electrical improvements, restoration of stained and leaded glass windows, and restoration of interior masonry and finishes, has been deferred to a future phase.
DLR Group, teamed with Chinn planning and local firm SSOE, was retained by Lucas County to study their jail which was not functioning ideally. The county’s 37-year-old downtown facility had reached population levels where inmates were being housing in booking holding cells without any access to programs, services, and very limited recreation opportunities. The facility’s problems were further compounded by its configuration and design which was very staff-inefficient and did not promote good observation of inmate housing areas. The poor design resulted in an unsafe environment for staff as they performed their inspection tours through high security areas where inmates could easily reach out and attack an officer walking by in the narrow walkway. The DLR Group-led team performed an analysis of future inmate projections along with space programming for a new facility incorporating contemporary best practices and concepts more conducive to inmate rehabilitation as well as staff efficiencies. The scope of work also included a thorough investigation of potential sites for a new facility, as remodeling of the existing facility was not deemed feasible. The final recommendation was to construct a new detention facility and sheriff’s department on a site that would allow for future expansion. The study is in its final stages and is expected to be complete in September 2014.
Design Achievement - The Lone Tree Arts Center is a contemporary and sustainable multi-purpose community center and premier performing arts venue serving as a gathering point for performances, meetings, and events. Expressing a forward-looking identity for the growing community outside of Denver, DLR Group’s design features an angular copper roof. Acting as a beacon for the community, the roof juts out from the site’s lower elevation and protects patrons from the elements. The mass of the building is constructed from brown Colorado sandstone, accented by a plaster finish on the underside of the roof and light-toned native wood in interior finishes. The glass entry overlooks an entry plaza and allows visual access to the activities within, creating excitement and drawing patrons inside. Scope Summary - Situated on a 5.8-acre site, this new 43,000 SF facility includes a 500-seat main stage theater with orchestra and balcony seating, state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems, an orchestra pit, fly space, and expertly designed acoustics. The audience chamber is intimate with every seat less than 60 feet from the stage. A large, 225-seat, multi-purpose adaptable event hall features variable enclosures accommodating a variety of intimate performances, events, and meetings. Windows allow natural light for performances that do not require complete “black out” conditions and for daytime maintenance and tours. This space opens through a retractable glass wall to a 350-seat outdoor terrace garden that functions as an informal amphitheater. The glass entry lobby is another flexible space for events and gallery use. Incorporation of efficient lighting, heating, cooling and water use systems has earned this building LEED NC certification. The project was publicly funded with money for additional enhancements raised by the Lone Tree Cultural Arts Foundation. DLR Group served as Lead Designer and A/E of Record for the project, providing comprehensive architecture, interior design, MEP and structural engineering, theater technical, and audiovisual design services.
NOT TO DLR Group standard DLR Group was hired by the Beachwood City Schools to plan and design the renovation of the original 1972 high school auditorium. The entirety of the high school was renovated in 2013, with the exception of the auditorium space. The existing auditorium was designed originally as a thrust theater situated within an octagonal seating arrangement. The space was not serving the full needs of the school district and the community, thus instigating the re-design of the auditorium. The space was more conducive to drama and not to music performance or general assembly use. The renovation of the space includes a full interior renovation with all new finishes and seating, a complete mechanical and electrical upgrade, and full upgrade of performance systems, including theatrical, sound and performance and house lighting. The project also includes expansion and renovation of front-of-house and back-of house amenities, including restrooms, dressing rooms, and the scene shop. The renovation of the AV and IT systems includes connecting to the existing school broadcast studios.
Design Achievement: Fox Sports Ohio, the regional affiliate of an international broadcast company, was consolidating its offices and production studios. DLR Group’s design reflects the operational structure of Fox Sports, which emphasizes internal communication and collaboration. Primary circulation paths terminate at the glazed exterior building corners, providing a sense of orientation and exposure to natural light. These prime corner spaces become places for impromptu meetings with views to Cleveland’s primary sports venues, contrary to the traditional executive corner office. An abundance of glass partitions and the use of oversized barn doors in lieu of conventionally sized hinge doors reinforce the notion of team connectivity and access. The intentionally understated palette enhances the qualities of natural light and gives visual precedence to content. Both broadcast monitors and heritage artifacts take center stage and animate the environment. Scope Summary: The project involved the renovation of 30,800 SF on two non-adjacent floors of a multi-tenant high-rise office building. 10,900 SF on the second floor contains broadcast studios and information technology services, while 19,900 SF on the 25th floor house executive management, development, advertising, marketing and creative resources. A key challenge was fitting broadcast production spaces adjacent to the multi-tenant building’s public atrium space. The design team developed strategies to work around existing structures and systems, maintaining tenant requirements for high level acoustic isolation, maximum clear working heights, and independent 24/7 mechanical systems. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP engineering, interior design, and technology design services.
Design Achievement - The Ohio Theatre Lobby functions as an important pre- and post-performance and event gathering space within Playhouse Square, the largest renovated Theater District in the United States and a DLR Group client of more than 40 years. When the Ohio Theatre, designed by renowned theater architect Thomas Lamb, originally opened in 1921, it revealed one of the most elaborate lobbies at the time, replete with an ornate frescoed ceiling, Corinthian columns, and a series of impressive murals inspired by the leading painter of the neoclassical French style, Nicholas Poussin. DLR Group's restoration of the Lobby returns the massive space, which had been destroyed by fire in 1964 and had undergone a modest remodel in the 1980s, to its original neoclassical splendor. Through painstaking research and an examination of the original architectural drawings, photo archives, and scant remnants of surviving ornamental plaster detail, the restoration recreates original paint colors, plaster ornamentation, columns, and other decorative features, accurately replicating the original design, while accommodating current building codes, new infrastructure, and patron needs. Scope Summary - Restoration of the 7,500 SF Ohio Theatre Lobby required keen attention to detail and skilled craftsmen. Artisans hand-sculpted plaster reproductions of the Lobby's original ornamental features, and acrylic paint and glazes were all hand applied on the 150-foot long ceiling. Sprinklers and air returns, necessary for modern systems and code compliance, were integrated and hidden within and above the ceiling's ornamental plaster elements. Three hand-painted, 30-foot-by-10-foot murals - were recreated from the Poussin-inspired originals - along with two fireplaces and marble and mahogany accents adorn the walls. Historic chandeliers - though not the originals - were restored, cleaned and rewired, and the original carpet was replicated. Throughout the entire restoration process, the theater remained fully operational. An associated project expanded the women’s restroom by 40%. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP and structural engineering, and information transport design services, working closely with EverGreene Architectural Arts, the restoration expert who provided the physical labor on the project.
NOT TO STANDARD Tovrea Castle has been a beloved Phoenix landmark since its construction in 1929. Originally meant to be a hotel surrounded by a garden of exotic cacti, the building and grounds were purchased within two years by Edward A. Tovrea, a leader in Arizona’s cattle industry. Mr. Tovrea died in 1932, leaving the estate to his wife, Della Tovrea, a socialite who later married William Stuart, publisher of the Prescott Daily Courier. Several improvements were made to the site in the 1930’s, when the grounds were used for entertaining by Della Tovrea Stuart who was prominent in Arizona politics of the mid-twentieth century. In 1960, Della moved into the Castle as her permanent home, living there reclusively until her death in 1969. When the City of Phoenix purchased the property in 1993, the Castle’s condition had deteriorated to the point where the City felt it necessary to close the site to the public. DLR Group was hired to restore the building to its original condition and to update it to meet current code requirements, with a view toward opening the Castle as an interpretive center and house museum, now situated at the center of the Phoenix metropolitan area. The $2.5 million restoration of this hand-made, historic building was challenging and complex due to the many fascinating features that make Tovrea Castle and the surrounding land unique. Phase I involved asbestos and lead abatement, cactus relocation, and temporary roofing. Phase II focused on deteriorated building elements, code deficiencies, and ADA accessibility. The original doors, windows, wood flooring, plaster and ornamental painting were restored. Extensive structural modifications to the existing floors, basement walls, and tunnels were made, as well as repairs to the stucco walls. To address ADA issues, the firm designed a ramp area that works with existing site grades to minimize its visual impact. The patio area was revised and ramps were added to provide access to the main living area. A lift was provided for access between the basement and first floor level. Another challenge was complete electrical systems replacement and the sensitive insertion of new HVAC in an historic building that never had any cooling. Because of space limitations, new steel beams and joists had to be pre-drilled for ductwork penetrations. In addition, DLR Group provided all new plumbing, while keeping existing fixtures to preserve historic content.
This is for additional Consultants fees created from attending the Fuel Load Mtg on 11/8/18 for additonal changes to the Atrium
Design Achievement: The Cleveland Institute of Music is recognized as one of the premier music conservatories in the United States. Located in University Circle in the heart of the city’s Cultural District, CIM was originally designed by DLR Group’s predecessor firm in the 1950s. In collaboration with Charles Young, DLR Group designed a renovation and expansion that serves CIM’s vision of being a center of education for 21st century musicians. Overcoming multiple challenges including the constraints of a tight site, the diversity of programmatic and technical requirements, and the required continuity of school operations during construction, the design solution involves two additions to increase available teaching, practice, and performance spaces. The Fred A. Lennon Education Building (north addition), designed for the express purpose of music education, provides CIM with the ability to connect its students via interactive videoconference with K-12 learners across the nation. The new Performance Wing (south addition), includes Mixon Hall, a state-of-the-art recital space that offers high-tech recording and broadcasting capabilities, serving as one of the region’s superlative facilities and positioning CIM among an elite group of a premier music schools throughout the world. Scope Summary: This project added 31,472 SF to the original 75,762 SF building. The addition incorporated a dynamic curved façade and entrance, with a landscaped garden flanking East Boulevard. The Fred A. Lennon Education Building includes a new kitchen, new expanded conference room, student lounge and terrace, loading dock, and donor plaza. The Performance Wing houses the 250-seat Mixon recital hall, created to meet the precise acoustic standards required for the level of clarity and evenness of sound required by the school. The Hall was also technologically equipped to be used for recording purposes. The Kulas Center for International Music Education, also housed in the Performance Wing, contains new teaching spaces, student practice rooms, and administrative offices. DLR Group served as architect of record, providing architectural construction documents construction administration services for the project.
Design Achievement - Kent State University's School of Journalism and Mass Communication found a new home through the adaptive reuse of a classroom building originally built in 1926 and a 20,000 SF addition. DLR Group's design balances the historic integrity of the existing structure with the modernism and energy of new spaces for converged media technologies. The resulting state-of-the-art facility exposes students to the working world of mass media: print, radio, internet, and teleproduction. The new addition is designed as a “garden structure,” separated by glass and discreetly nestled into the hillside to the north in order to respect the symmetry of its older companion. Utilizing buff engineered brick, limestone, and details that harmonize with the existing Franklin Hall, the addition also relates to the vernacular vocabulary of neighboring Modernist buildings and expresses the contemporary and utilitarian nature of the broadcast studios and larger, specialized technical program components within. Interior spaces are flexible and adaptable, supporting a change from teaching-centered to learning centered pedagogies. Hallways, comfortable gathering areas, and informal spaces provide opportunities for students and faculty to interact. Openness and transparency allow activities from broadcast studios, laboratories, and control rooms to animate the spaces. Scope Summary - Its traditional exterior identity preserved, the 61,000 SF, four-story Franklin Hall was essentially gutted to accommodate new classrooms, computer labs, and offices. The new 20,000 SF addition houses the program’s high-technology spaces, requiring larger areas, clear span heights and strict vibration control. These include the $2.5 million high-definition, black-box broadcast TV studio, the 2,500 SF “converged newsroom” multimedia space, and a 150-seat wireless lecture hall with three high-definition projection screens and distance learning capabilities. A gathering place for events, the two-story atrium lobby features six plasma screens and the Alumni Hall of Fame. The glass-enclosed Carl E. Hirsch Media Convergence Laboratory on the second floor overlooks the main central entry to the building, representative of new classrooms that invite participation and collaboration. Exposed data power and cable trays running along the ceilings celebrate technology and communication connectivity while raised floors, wiring conduits, and data systems provide easy access to adapt to new technologies. The project also involved a complete rehabilitation of mechanical and electrical systems in the existing Franklin Hall. DLR Group provided architecture, interior design, MEP and structural engineering, theater technical, and audiovisual design services.
Design Achievement - Commanding a prominent site along the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida, the David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts (formerly Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center) is the sixth largest performing arts center in the U.S. The Straz Center currently hosts over 600,000 patrons / 9,600 events, annually. Built in 1987 on an abandoned gravel lot in a city lacking cultural offerings, it is now home to Opera Tampa, the Patel Conservatory, six theaters/rehearsal halls, dining, and special event catering. Having worked with the Straz Center on previous studies and master planning efforts since 2006, DLR Group's most recent master plan addresses the Center's desire to remain a state-of-the-art performance facility that keeps pace with the city’s far-reaching growth potential. Extending the city grid down to the river and the river’s alluvial edge up to the Straz Center, the master plan merges both public and patron amenities, bringing the unintended user into contact with the arts and reciprocally delivering the arts to the riverfront. Scope Summary - The Straz Center master plan developed a 20-year vision for the improvement and expansion of a site area of 10 acres and a building area of 240,000 SF, involving both interior and exterior enhancements. The plan established an appropriate site program to resolve key challenges: pedestrian and vehicular circulation (drop off, parking, bus staging); connection to river and downtown core; and, by redesigning the vehicular road system, creating and developing a new parcel on adjacent land to accommodate parking and mixed-use development. In order to reinforce the experience of the Straz Center as an arts campus, the plan recommended a series of interventions in new construction—lobby expansion, updated food and beverage services, a new event center, arrival plaza, and outdoor event terraces. It further leveraged the development of a new residential tower, the city’s Riverwalk (already extending both north and south of the site along the Hillsborough), and new Art Museum and Children’s Museum located within the larger riverfront park. DLR Group provided master planning, architecture, and urban design (in collaboration with Hargreaves Associates) services.
Design Achievement - The Tony Award-winning Cleveland Play House, the nation's first professional regional theater, and Cleveland State University were both in need of new theater facilities for their respective programs. At the same time, the historic Allen Theatre, originally built in 1921 as a 3,080-seat movie palace and later used as a venue for Broadway musicals, was only marginally used. DLR Group's transformative design for the renovation/adaptive reuse and expansion of the Allen Theatre provides a new home for both the Cleveland Play House and Cleveland State University's Theatre Department within Playhouse Square, the nation’s largest performing arts center outside of New York City, and brings a cultural treasure back to life. The project supports modern professional and academic theater programs, while maintaining the theater's historic features; and generates long-term economic benefits for the organizations, as well as for a central, urban district. Scope Summary - The transformation created three new theaters within the 81,000 SF existing historic theater and a 44,000 SF addition. In order to accommodate repertory theater, which requires speech clarity without amplification, an intimate and contemporary 512-seat Main Stage proscenium theater with enhanced acoustical elements was designed within the volume of the existing Allen Theatre. Also within the existing theater, the original sloped under-balcony area was redeveloped into a cobalt blue lounge and amber hue pre-function spaces for lectures and other events. The project also included an addition inserted between the Allen Theatre and the Ohio Theatre housing the 300-seat Outcalt Second Stage, a transformational space capable of in-the-round, three-quarter thrust, runway, or endstage configurations; and the 150-seat Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre, a traditional black box. A pedestrian connector to the garage was reworked to provide an "inner streetscape," with a view into the Lab Theatre lobby and the historic brick of the existing Allen Theatre. The project anticipates LEED NC certification. DLR Group provided master planning, architecture, interior design, MEP and structural engineering, LEED/sustainable design, theater technical, historic preservation, audiovisual, lighting design, and IT/Telecommunications design services.
NOT TO BRAND STANDARD DLR Group worked with the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) Director to provide architectural and interior design, structural engineering, and MEP engineering services to renovate the upper floor of the historic Cowell & Hubbard Building (originally built in 1919 and modified in 1955) at 1305 Euclid Avenue. The award-winning renovated space houses new studios, gallery, classroom/conference spaces and faculty and staff offices for CUDC which was the first tenant in this newly adapted building. The design approach reveals the history of renovations/alterations of the building by leaving many of the architectural elements, including raw concrete floors and plaster walls, exposed and intact. Much of the writing and infrastructure is also left exposed, providing flexibility and ease of maintenance.   DLR Group also provided LEED consultation and MEP Engineering services for the renovation of the core and shell of this building, which is owned by PlayhouseSquare Foundation. This scope included HVAC and lighting design for the public entrance, a public corridor, and new public restrooms within the 44,907 SF building. In Phase 2 the existing graduate studio was expanded into an adjacent vacant tenant space. Existing finishes and millwork were extended onto the new space.  A work room for the laser cutter was included in the expansion as well. An existing work room was modified into a private office and team room. The existing HVAC and electrical systems were extended to the expanded space. Completion date: 10.2010 (Phase 1) \| 10.2013 (Phase 2) Construction cost: $491,859 (Ph 1) \| $321,000 (Ph 2) Size: 8,798 SF (Phase 1) \| 2,500 SF (Phase 2) DLR Group provided architectural, interior design, LEED consultation and MEP and structural engineering services. LEED CI Silver certified
Design Achievement - The Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion Health Education Campus is a partnership project between the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University. This campus addition allows medical, nursing, dental and physician assistant students to learn, study and dine together. By placing these disciplines under one roof the students and faculty develop a shared language, foster greater communication, and collaboration that’s required in the fast-paced field of healthcare. This state-of-the-future campus features architectural, curricular, and technological innovations that are destined to elevate healthcare by transforming how students learn and collaborate. Scope - The 485,000 SF facility is located on an 11-acre site on Cleveland Clinic’s main campus and will accommodate approximately 2,300 students. The building design not only offers unique teaching spaces for each program but also includes shared spaces that support a shift in pedagogy within the healthcare industry to foster open, inclusive collaboration between disciplines. The facility features a mixture of lecture halls, classrooms, skills labs, administrative and office workstations, meeting rooms, conference rooms, and staff lounges that are organized around communal spaces. The upper floor includes large study areas called Learning Communities while the ground floor features a large open atrium that functions as an assembly point, circulation zone, library, and catering area. In collaboration with Design Architect, Foster + Partners, DLR Group served as Architect of Record and Structural Engineer of Record for the project and supervised a project team of approximately 20 consultants.
Design Achievement - The Clemens Center honors Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) in his adopted home of Elmira, New York. The project reclaims the historic 1920 Powers Theater, while sensitively integrating contemporary new work, and restores the Clemens Center as one of the most significant performing arts venues in central New York. The theater was previously damaged by flood, and scarred by the former removal of its historic lobby and superimposition of a pre-cast exterior. The venue was undersized for audience capacity and had circulation problems from an earlier lobby addition. DLR Group’s design creates a new, vibrant exterior image, reconfigures the entry sequence, and enhances the performance capabilities of the historic theater. A renovated lobby with premium fixtures and finishes provides a rich and theatrical environment with Italian porcelain ceramics, encaustic plaster and a harlequin terrazzo floor that unifies spaces inside and out. The restored audience chamber celebrates the original details of the 1920s space while integrating state-of-the-art performance technology. Scope Summary - DLR Group’s master plan and subsequent renovation revitalized this regional cultural treasure in two phases. Phase I removed a non-compatible 1970s appendage, inserted a new addition and re-organized public space. This phase included exterior re-imaging, signage and lighting, and infrastructure upgrades as well as the renovation of the lobby, box office, restrooms, and arrival plaza. Phase 2 encompassed a stagehouse and performer support expansion and the renovation of the historic auditorium. The larger stagehouse, with increased load bearing capacity and stage depth, accommodates a new gridiron, rigging, fly gallery, loading bridge and HVAC system—all achieved with the existing structure and roof intact. In the audience chamber, historically accurate murals were recreated and original lighting fixtures were refurbished. Seating was replaced and realigned and new sidewall boxes were re-introduced. Integrated performance technology systems include a portable orchestra pit filler, stage drapery, stage lighting fixtures, stage dimming systems and theatrical wiring devices, new stage rigging, new orchestra lift and pit, and digital film projection capabilities. Both phases were completed while maintaining ongoing theater operations. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP and structural engineering, interior design, historic preservation, theater technical, audiovisual, and lighting design.
Design Achievement - Looking to establish an arts district and create a catalyst for downtown revitalization, the City of Peoria recognized a need for a new state-of-the-art performance venue that could accommodate diverse performance, community, and educational programming. DLR Group's design creates a vibrant and flexible, multi-functional performing arts and community center situated on a prominent and accessible site in the context of a public park and pedestrian street. The theater and lobby open to garden settings as a community amenity and downtown "living room." A palette of forms, materials, textures, and colors draws inspiration from the southwest desert/mountain context. The striking roof structure--an organic, sculptural expression evoking silhouettes of distant mountains--consists of a series of folded plates of copper shingle that visually reduces the large scale of the stage house. The roof overhangs the building envelope providing shade for public spaces and the glass lobby façade, which gives visual access to activity within. The primary user is the preeminent community theater group, Theatre Works. Scope Summary - The new 21,000 SF venue includes two multi-functional stages. A 250-seat main stage theater has flexible seating for varying audiences and an orchestra pit for up to 17 musicians. An 80-seat black box experimental theater provides adjustability for staging on risers and theater-in-the-round, as well as corporate meetings, receptions, and other rental uses. The black box provides an intimate space for programming outside the mainstream. Other components include an art gallery/lobby, two large classrooms/workshop, dressing rooms, and offices. Allowing for simultaneous use and access, public and support spaces serve both stages independently. The project included integrated state-of-the-art theater technology and staging systems, including computerized dimming and stage lighting control systems and a variable-speed, motorized stage rigging system that is operable by one person rather than multiple people and is safer to operate than typical counterweight rigging systems. DLR Group provided architecture, mechanical and electrical engineering, interior design, and theater technical services.
Add Service 13, MEP updates to Suite 1109 per tenant changes.
DLR Group designed and implemented the partial renovation of selected practice rooms, classrooms and studios in Hughes Hall for The School of Music. The primary focus of the project was to provide better sound isolation within the building, resulting in more effective practice, teaching, and performance spaces. This was accomplished through a series of strategic renovations including acoustic isolation of walls, ceilings, and floors; installation of acoustic doors and seals; and adjustment to mechanical ductwork. The project also included selected hazardous material abatement. The key challenge was to achieve the best result within the available construction budget. This required close consideration of the relationships of each space, both side-by-side and above-and-below, and where intervention could have the biggest impact.
Add Service 13, MEP updates to Suite 1109 per tenant changes.
Add Service 13, MEP updates to Suite 1109 per tenant changes.
Design Achievement - The Surgery/CSR expansion is constructed on the site of the old Central Plant facility and laundry/IT building. Intended to blend with the original campus, the design reimagines the existing palette and materials for the 21st century. Red brick masonry accented with metal panels and louvers, masks mechanical systems. A red sandstone and glass entry combined with a metal canopy lend importance to the new entry. DLR Group’s design provides natural light, logical circulation separating staff, public and patient traffic, and maximizes adaptability/flexibility. Scope Description - Salem Community Hospital is a 313,000 SF, private, not-for-profit 234-bed acute care hospital. The new 32,000 square foot, 2-story structure includes a suite of six operating rooms arranged around a sterile core with potential for future expansion to eight ORs, new central supply department, shelled space for program expansion, and a mechanical penthouse. Demolition and expansion of the existing 22,000 SF surgery suite allowed for the creation of new pre and post-op/recovery bays, staff offices and support areas, and a new surgery waiting room. DLR Group provided architecture, MEPS engineering, interior design, and sustainability services.
Design Achievement - The Ohio State University’s main Columbus campus was established in 1870 and has since grown to accommodate 56,000 students as one of the nation’s top public universities. Centered on the historical main entrance into the University at High Street and 15th Avenue, DLR Group’s Arts District Block plan addresses the space needs of the University’s academic, performing, and visual arts programs and leverages connections between the University and the region in which it is situated. The proposed plan relocates, renovates, and designs new facilities in order to enhance synergies of related programs and reduce “silo-ing” by schools that share similar programmatic needs. The plan strengthens the gateway to the campus by creating clear visual cues to the Oval viewed across a re-imagined 15th Street Plaza and improves the relationship between the campus and the city of Columbus by providing an active open space that spans High Street. Public spaces and streetscape improvements that support the missions of the academic programs, the Wexner Center, and the Ohio State University as a whole will improve the character of the entire neighborhood, and create an inviting entrance to the University. Scope Summary - DLR Group was responsible for programming and functional planning for all performance venues, collaborating with Robert A.M. Stern Architects who led urban design for the project. After considering seven existing structures, our plan proposes to consolidate the School of Music in an expanded Weigel Hall while re-purposing Hughes Hall; to relocate the Department of Theater from the Drake Performance and Event Center; and to provide a new home for the Moving Image Production (MIP) in Sullivant Hall. The Arts District Plan will convert the Mershon Auditorium from a general purpose theater to a venue for the Department of Theater. Renovations to the Wexner Center will provide an improved connection from High Street to the Oval in a renovated plaza. The initial master plan completed in 2016 has since been refined by our team via a programming study. Current recommendations expand the project scope, breaking it into two phases. Phase 1 involves the School of Music, and Department of Theatre. Later phases will accomplish the following: develop a new Fine Arts Library; expand the Wexner Center; and demolish Merhson Auditorium and replace it with a new 1,400 seat theater, Kunsthalle, a 350-seat proscenium theater, and a wintergarden/event center. DLR Group provided master planning services, including architecture, MEP engineering, theater technical, and audiovisual design, in association with Robert A.M. Stern Architects.
Design Achievement - Widely renowned for its innovative music program, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music offers students the opportunity to learn and perform in a number of world-class facilities. Unlike the Conservatory’s more traditional, formal venues, the new Birenbaum Innovation & Performance Space (BIPS) offers an authentic “jazz club” atmosphere that encourages an interactive dynamic between performer and audience and allows for more experimental musical expressions. DLR Group’s design creates a modern, intimate venue with distinct volumetric zones for collaborative teaching and performance. Offering versatility and functionality, the flexible space easily transforms from classroom to club, becoming an incubator for diverse and unexpected experiences. Situated within the vibrant Oberlin Green Arts District (master planned by DLR Group as well), Oberlin BIPS complements the District by inviting students, faculty, and the community to interact, to learn, and to be entertained. Scope Summary – The project involved a fit out of an existing space within the basement level of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center. The 3,200 SF fit out included a flexible, teaching / performance space consisting of a raised stage and seating for more than 100 patrons, first-level vestibule and staircase, gallery, full bar/lounge, innovative laboratory space/green room, storage, and restrooms. The stage accommodates flexible configurations with adaptive amplification and audiovisual elements that enhance live performance. Seating options range from bar seating and banquettes to tables and chairs. The fit out aligns with the overall facility’s sustainability efforts that achieved LEED Platinum certification, Net-Zero energy consumption, and Net-Zero carbon production. DLR Group provided architecture, interior design and FFE, structural engineering, information transport, security, and signage services for this project.
Design Achievement - A collaboration between the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University, this facility houses the University’s School of Dental Medicine. DLR Group’s design combines clinical treatment areas for the nearly 19,000 low-income residents seeking treatment at the clinic each year with cutting-edge oral science education. The clinic enjoys frontage on the well-traveled Chester Avenue in the heart of the Cleveland Clinic’s main campus, just a few blocks west of Case Western Reserve University. Its urban location offers easy access to treatment within a welcoming, calm, and stress-reducing environment. Natural light is visible throughout the facility, helping orient practitioners who often work long hours performing surgery or studying in labs. The design mirrors the university’s academic discipline with an emphasis on a flexible, collaborative, and supportive learning environment. The public spaces are surrounded by full-height glazing while treatment areas utilize ribbon windows to provide patients with continuous panoramic views without creating the feeling of being on display. The rounds/seminar rooms are adjacent to clinical environments allowing these spaces to be used for general practice clinics, additional classrooms, and meeting rooms. Scope Summary - New, 3-story, 132,000 GSF dental clinic. The project includes operatories for students and faculty, clinic support, collaborative learning areas with rounds/seminar rooms, public/waiting areas, administrative/staff space, and mechanical/electrical maintenance space. The clinic incorporates more than 200 dental chairs, offers enhanced spaces for cutting-edge dental education and practice. The building’s central core accommodates sterilization labs and a medication dispensary. Operational activities, including intake, screenings, and exams, take place on the building’s perimeter, and a basement offers ample space for a student lounge, lockers, and advanced sterilization equipment. DLR Group provided architecture, structural engineering, FFE, and AV design services.
Design Achievement - Cleveland's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is a non-collecting museum featuring ever-changing exhibits that offer visitors new experiences upon each return. The Museum's new home is an iconic building at a prominent urban site and the centerpiece of an important redevelopment program of multiple cultural and retail facilities. Devised for both environmental and fiscal sustainability, the design of the four-story building is at once technically inventive, visually stunning, and highly practical. Responding to the roughly triangular site, the building has a hexagonal base that transitions to a square roof. The exterior is clad primarily in mirror-finish black Rimex stainless steel reflecting its urban surroundings. Three of the building’s six facets, one of them clad in transparent glass, flank a public plaza. The interior creates open and flexible spaces that accommodate frequently changing configurations and use. Circulation can be directed either via the main staircase, open to the atrium, with views of other floors, or the enclosed, illuminated egress stairs. The top floor is structurally unencumbered, needing only to hold the lightweight roof, the underside of which is fully visible. Scope Summary - DLR Group programmed the building, collaborating with Design Architect Farshid Moussavi Architects (FMA). The main gallery features movable walls that enable the 6,000 SF space to be divided into a variety of configurations accommodating diverse exhibitions. Other exhibit spaces include a gallery for new-media work and a 1,500 SF public gallery. The project also encompasses an atrium, lobby, double-height multi-purpose room, exhibition workshops, spaces for education programs, administrative offices, café and shop, and city-view lounge. DLR Group engineers worked closely with conservators to establish humidity and temperature criteria for gallery and preservation spaces. Electrical lighting and power systems were designed to allow flexibility and ease of use in spaces that change configuration and/or use frequently such as in gallery spaces and other public areas. DLR Group also designed the technology, including wi-fi throughout the building; all lighting from exterior and gallery to office and all public spaces; and all audiovisual systems, including capability for screening film, educational technology, and digital signage. The project achieved LEED Silver certification. DLR Group provided architectural programming; architect of record; MEP and structural engineering; and integrated technology design, including audiovisual, security, telecommunications, information transport, and lighting services.
Design Achievement – The rehabilitation of the Walsh U.S. Courthouse demonstrates the General Services Administration’s (GSA) reinvestment in the nation’s historic public building legacy. Originally erected in 1929, the building features elaborate terracotta ornament and details befitting the neoclassical architectural style typical of federal buildings of the period. Over the years, the Walsh Courthouse had incurred numerous alterations at the expense of key features of the primary courtroom and the historic façade. DLR Group’s renovation design restores many of these character-defining elements while responding to ever-increasing space needs and stringent security requirements for new use by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the U.S. Trustee. On the exterior, new blast resistant windows replicate the building’s original Neoclassical appearance while subtle adjustments to the sidewalk and street alignments eliminate the need for intrusive vehicle barriers. Inside, the primary historic courtroom and former postal sorting area are restored to the original design, while integrating updated security, lighting and sound provisions. The original skylights, which had been roofed over, are replaced with new light wells that improve the environmental conditions in the public contact space. The project achieves GSA’s priorities for safety, enhanced quality, and experience of Tucson’s significant National Register landmark. Scope Summary - The 56,250 SF rehabilitation was delivered on time and under budget while maintaining full occupancy. DLR Group worked closely with judges and clerk staff to improve the quality of the previous courtroom spaces and to design optimal sightlines and acoustics for judges, clerks, and visitors. Computer-generated 3-D mock-ups created in real time incorporated feedback from users on the design of judges’ benches and clerks’ desks. New insulated wall fabric was selected for its acoustical properties and also expresses a more consistent appearance in harmony with the space’s historic character. The former interior light well – which had become an unsightly utilitarian location for mechanical equipment– was converted into a courtyard for employees, yielding access to a new roof deck and providing views of ornamental balconies and architectural details that had been only partially visible from within the building. Designed to LEED criteria but not formally certified, the project also incorporated sustainable design strategies such as new landscaping with native plants and improvements to HVAC and electrical systems. This project received the 2009 AIA Academy of Architecture for Justice Knowledge Community Justice Facility Review and the 2008 Arizona Governor's Heritage Preservation Honor Award. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP engineering, interior design, historic preservation, energy conservation, and acoustical consulting services.
http://hec.case.edu/about-the-campus/dental-clinic/ Just across the street from the Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion is the new Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine clinic, now open to patients. Designed by architects from DLR Group, the three-story, 132,000-square-foot structure provides School of Dental Medicine students a spacious, state-of-the art environment in which to treat patients under the supervision of dental faculty. The new location offers parking adjacent to the clinic, a significant improvement over the more distant parking options for the current clinic. In addition, patients sometimes had difficulty finding the former clinic nestled along a driveway surrounded by multiple taller buildings. Adjacent to the dental clinic is a recreational park providing access to the neighboring children and their parents. Cleveland Clinic is working with the Famicos Foundation and Hough Development Corp. to bring the park to life for residents. Nearly 19,000 patients seek treatment at the dental school’s clinic each year, 11,000 of whom are Cleveland residents. The clinic charges rates roughly 40 to 60 percent lower than traditional dental offices, and also accepts Medicaid.
Design Achievement – The innovative approach used at Lerner School for Autism integrated clinical and educational services to provide an early example of a school dedicated to the instruction of autistic children within a hospital environment. A benchmark facility for the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital, the Lerner School for Autism weaves clinical intervention, medicine and education for people with autism under one roof. With an overriding design goal of minimalism, each decision related to the exterior envelope was purposeful, maintaining a clean, forward-thinking design that complemented the cutting-edge technology and concepts used to help educate children at the school. The design expresses a strong modernist simplicity and clarity of purpose. Every detail and element considers the potential impact on student behavior and sensory experience. Highly-organized spaces with optimal acoustics, lighting and indoor air quality and temperature for thermal comfort support the behavioral and sensory program. A result of a collaborative and intensive programming session, the unique layout and planning of spaces offers a secure environment in which those with autism can focus and learn. The space is compliant with regulations from both the Ohio Department of Education and the Joint Commission for Healthcare Accreditation. The Lerner School for Autism was the subject of lectures at the Healthcare Facilities Symposium and National Association of Children’s and Rehabilitation Hospital Planning & Design Conference and featured in Healthcare Design magazine. Scope Summary – The 21,000 SF project included eight classroom suites with features that vary based on the age of the students. Strict program requirements drove the design to maintain the 1:1 student to teacher ratio as well as to create a neutral sensory environment. The design team worked with the school staff to produce spaces that minimize distractions, control acoustics, provide durability, and prevent injury. The school also includes conference and training facilities in conjunction with administrative offices, activity and dining spaces, and speech therapy spaces. Encouraging family involvement, a media room allows parents to observe children in the classroom from a remote location. DLR Group provided architecture, interiors, and FF&E services.
Design Achievement - Founded in 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame hosts 200,000 visitors a year as well as the annual Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremonies and Festival on the campus and in adjacent Fawcett Stadium. Visitors come from around the United States to visit the one facility dedicated to the preservation of the history of professional football. In anticipation of its 50th anniversary, the Hall of Fame sought to upgrade the facility in support of its recently completed strategic plan. DLR Group’s fully implemented master plan expands the museum and improves the physical plant, resulting in an enhanced visitor experience and allowing the Hall of Fame to expand its collections and improve venues based on operations, admissions, and retail. Serving as a gateway to a new orientation theater and renovated exhibition space, a new two-story atrium lobby entrance is situated at the center of the complex, combining the entry and exit experience, in order to improve wayfinding for visitors while also minimizing infiltration of outside air and helping to control temperature and humidity. A new Research and Preservation Center enables the proper storage of artifacts and archive material and enhances educational outreach efforts of the institution. Scope Summary – The project scope encompassed a comprehensive master plan and phased renovation and expansion, bringing the building from 83,000 SF to 124,000 SF. The project involved museum, branding, and operational planning in addition to a facility assessment and improvement recommendations. Phase 1 of the implemented project included the design and construction of several additions comprising a 10,800 SF Research and Preservation Center, a 4,200 SF Event Center, and the main entrance / lobby. A new state-of-the-art environmental control system installed throughout the facility ensures the long-term preservation of the Hall of Fame’s priceless collection. The exhibition galleries located in the Hall of Fame’s iconic 1963 two-story rotunda and adjacent exhibit gallery were renovated and retrofitted with building vapor barriers to help assure proper temperature and humidity controls throughout the exhibition galleries. New indoor and outdoor event spaces, an expanded retail store, new office space and enhancements to parking and the surrounding campus completed the project. DLR Group provided master planning; museum planning; architecture; MEP and structural engineering; and audiovisual, lighting, acoustic and information transport design services for the project.
Design Achievement – The Woody Hayes Athletic Center, an indoor training facility for The Ohio State University (OSU) Football Program, previously featured an unorganized collection of artifacts and static interactive displays to document the rich history of the OSU Football Program. The space had no cohesive sense of purpose and was generally wasted space used solely as a transition through the building. The DLR Group design reorganizes the space, highlighting the National Championship and Heisman trophies won by OSU student-athletes, while simultaneously serving as a recruiting space for the coaching staff, and game day attraction for fans. The design eliminates visual clutter and establishes an open floor plate with a main focal point and organically-structured content and circulation. Scope Summary – The scope of this project was a 3,000 SF renovation, and expansion, of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. The design added an entry lobby at the northeast corner of the building, highlighting the traditions of Ohio State football. The focal point is a championship wall celebrating Ohio State's National Championship Teams. Features include new interactive displays with enhanced specialty lighting highlighting the accomplishments of the Buckeye program, a new welcome desk, and updated graphics throughout. DLR Group provided architecture, structural engineering, audiovisual, graphic design, and exhibit design services.
No to spec: Working with Campus PARC and the Wexner Medical Center, DLR Group developed a Criteria Package for two staff parking garages for the Wexner Medical Center. The new seven story parking structures replace approximately 2,200 parking spaces dislocated by the Cannon Drive Project. The proposed sites are located mid-block on John Herrick Drive and at the Corner of Medical Center Drive and Street ‘A’ (to be named). Each garage includes two stairs, two elevators, support spaces such as: IT, electrical, and elevator equipment rooms. The garages feature 90 degree spaces, two-way vehicular circulation and a sloped ramp transitioning between levels. Additionally, each site requires coordination to manage existing private and public utilities. Herrick Site is located along the North edge of John Herrick Drive, next to the existing Neil Avenue Garage. The proposed plan calls for two points of vehicular entry. The building is exposed, cast in place post tensioned concrete, and is designed to be compatible with the existing Neil Avenue Garage. Dodd Site is located at the South West corner of Medical Center Drive and Street ‘A’. The design includes a prominent stair and elevator tower at the corner of Medical Center Drive and Street ‘A’. Exterior cladding consists of a curtain wall system at the stair towers, brick veneer at the pedestrian level over a pre-cast, post-tensioned, concrete structure.
NOT TO BRAND STANDARD As part of our firm’s Master Services agreement with Playhouse Square, the nation’s largest historic theater district, DLR Group designed a series of targeted improvements to the KeyBank State Theatre. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb and built in 1921, the 3,200-seat venue was built in the Italian Renaissance style and originally used for vaudeville and movies. Projects focused on improving the theater seating layout for audience comfort, new carpet in the lobby and auditorium, renovation of the box office, and a renovation of back of house spaces. All projects were developed in true partnership between Owner, Architect, and Contractor. For each component of the renovations, DLR Group worked with Playhouse Square and Turner construction to develop schematic-level design drawings that Turner Construction then used to set an overall budget. DLR Group then worked directly with Turner Construction, vendors, and subcontractors prior-to and during construction to fine tune the design and make fabrication and installation as efficient as possible. Highlights of the work include the following: Balcony Overbuild and Seating Layout: alleviated tight row-to-row spacing in the balcony by building over the existing risers with new prefabricated wooden platforms with more generous leg room. The project resulted in the loss of two rows in the balcony which were recouped by adding two rows in the orchestra level. The overbuild was assembled in less than two months. Carpet and Seating Redesign and Replacement: DLR Group worked directly with Axminster carpet mills to create four different designs for carpet, each at different scales, intended for specific areas of the theater and lobby. We also worked directly with Irwin Seating to design new fixed theater seats and custom-painted end panels. Back of House Renovation: refreshed the dressing rooms, green room, restrooms, and rehearsal rooms, areas that had not been touched since the stagehouse was expanded in the 1970s. Central Box Office Renovation: Re-imagined the central box office as a more open and welcoming guest-focused concierge area by opening up the wall between the main ticket lobby and the box office.
Design Narrative – Built in 1926, Cleveland’s historic Terminal Tower anchors Public Square and serves as a node for public transportation, retail, entertainment, and commerce. Upon the relocation of a prime building tenant, K&D Real Estate Services seized the opportunity to re-imagine a portion of the tower as residential apartments--continuing the revitalization of housing in downtown Cleveland. DLR Group’s design respects Terminal Tower’s storied history while bringing new life to tired office spaces by renovating them into luxury apartment units. Great attention to historic details mixed with timeless finishes and fixtures creates a vibrant living environment for new and long-time downtown Cleveland residents. Units feature gracious ceilings, warm color palettes, abundant natural light, and highlight elements of the building’s history. An amenity floor provides tenants with a large fitness center, catered event space, and outdoor roof terrace with views overlooking Lake Erie and the Cleveland skyline. DLR Group’s goal was to use the adaptive reuse of the Terminal Tower to enhance the lifestyle of the residents and surrounding community – the roof terrace and placemaking opportunities throughout the tower serve as community building opportunities that serve a greater purpose to elevate the human experience through our design. Scope Summary – The scope of work encompassed the space planning and architectural and engineering design for apartment units across twelve floors atop 3 levels of Terminal Tower, comprising roughly 270,000 SF. Extensive building systems upgrades were completed to bring Terminal Tower into modern code compliance. DLR Group worked with the State Historic Preservation Office to document the proposed changes and preserve and restore key elements of the tower. Interventions were required across the building, requiring intense coordination with building ownership, tenants, and city officials to assure that the building was safe for the other occupants and public. DLR Group provided programming, architectural design, interior design, limited FF&E, MEP and structural engineering, and historic preservation services.
Design achievement - Situated between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania State University is a major cultural center in central Pennsylvania. The College of Arts and Architecture encompasses academic programs in theater, music, dance, visual arts, art history, architecture, and landscape architecture. DLR Group’s 20-year master plan for the College creates a recognizable, multi-disciplinary arts district within the campus. The plan increases the visibility of the arts programs via strategic programmatic placement within the campus and transparency of performance and making environments; resolves program and facility deficiencies for drama, music, and visual arts spaces; and co-locates programs to engender inter-disciplinary arts learning and research. Overall, the plan broadly defines the University’s future facility needs and develops conceptual plans to meet these goals. It consolidates programs allowing for the reduction in energy costs and reserves valuable real estate for future programming. Scope summary – The master plan encompassed 926,000 GSF and 27 buildings. The plan considered the number and type of performance, rehearsal, and support spaces for music and theater and the co-location of the School of Music and the School of Theatre to enhance synergies for opera and musical theater. Space considerations addressed recital and concert halls, including instrument storage and practice rooms; the Downtown Theatre Center, Playhouse Theatre, and Pavilion Theatre; load-in, costuming, and scene and paint shops; and classrooms and offices. The project also involved the assessment and planning of the expansion of the School of Visual Arts and the Palmer Museum of Art; the dismantling of the Arts Cottage; the creation of fabrication shops and emerging technology labs (MAKE labs); and the renovation of the Eisenhower and Schwab Auditoriums. Careful deliberation was given to creating order of magnitude costs, phasing, and implementation options. The master plan aligns with an action plan to reduce carbon emissions from utility sources, resulting in an infrastructure vision of no net increase in energy consumption, even with an increase in program area of 250,000 SF. DLR Group provided master planning, architecture, MEP and structural engineering, sustainable design, theatrical, and audiovisual design services.
Design Achievement - The Theatre, Dance, and Music programs at Denison University were spread out and isolated from one another on the Fine Arts Quad. The new Michael D. Eisner Center for the Arts designed by DLR Group unites Denison’s dance, music, and theater programs within a single building that also serves as a gateway to the historic village adjacent to the campus. The building’s exterior respects the historical character of the campus and village while creating a modern interior to facilitate collaboration between the students and professors of each department. Corridors are widened and populated with loose furnishings to encourage students to study, socialize, and engage with one another, while practice rooms located along the main corridors have large expanses of acoustically treated glazing to visually activate the space. Department offices are located together at the south entrance so that faculty can be close to one another as well. Scope Summary - The project includes new performance venues with support spaces, classroom and offices, and a partial renovation of Burke Hall which is attached to the new building. Performance spaces include a 400-seat theater with a wrap-around balcony and an adjustable throat stage, a 2,400 SF dance hall with flexible seating and performance arrangements, and a multi-purpose black box room. Each space is optimized for flexibility and can be used by any of the departments. Support spaces include a 2,300 SF scene shop and a costume shop, three large music rehearsal rooms and a choir room. The program includes 47 offices for tenured and visiting professors, 27 of which serve as teaching studios that are acoustically separated from one another. The building was designed to achieve a LEED Gold rating. The firm also designed a potential geothermal well field and solar panel array that can be added later. DLR Group provided full architectural services, structural, MEP, lighting, fire protection, and telecommunications engineering services, theatrical and audiovisual design services.
Design Achievement – The University of California UCBerkley's Department of Theater Dance and Performance Studies (TDPS) is an interdisciplinary arts program. Its mission is to foster critical inquiry, creative expression, and public engagement. Inadequate teaching and learning spaces, carved out haphazardly over time, limit the program’s potential. Facility constraints hinder the investigation of new techniques and technologies in research and performance, as well as the academic aspirations of the faculty and students. A state-wide university budget crisis compounds the design challenge. The design team presents two potential solutions, both of which can be implemented in multiple phases as resources become available. The Master Plan also provides near-term actions to improve accessibility and usability of currently occupied spaces prior to any major capital investment. Each option improves the match between TDPS programs and facilities by consolidating space, bringing teaching and research together across the curriculum, and strengthening the department’s interdisciplinary aspects in terms of physical spaces. Both options also prioritize universal accessibility; provide facilities that support teaching and performance at transformative levels; expand rehearsal spaces; develop a physical "core" gathering and collaboration space; and enhance visibility and engagement with the broader campus community. Scope Summary - Under the scope of master plan option 1, the design team proposes west and south additions to the flexible 300- to 500-seat Playhouse (primary home of TDPS) within Zellerbach Hall, a multi-venue facility built in 1968, as well as improvements to existing spaces in Dwinelle Hall. This option leverages the historic capital investment for the academic theater program in the Playhouse and recent investment in departmental offices in Dwinelle Hall. The option creates key adjacencies with programs housed in Dwinelle Hall, while providing enhanced visibility of the creative process to the public along Spieker Plaza and Bancroft Way. Option 1 encompasses 63,000 SF (33,110 SF - renovation \| 30,320 SF - new). Option 2 constructs a new, central theater core to house dedicated theater, shop, and related program elements; renovates Hearst Memorial Gymnasium for theater and dance; and uses the Zellerbach Playhouse as a "road house-style" venue. This option connects multiple disciplines and enhances the campus presence of a larger arts and creativity-focused academic center. This option encompasses 53,010 SF (14,445 SF - renovation \| 40,655 SF - new). DLR Group provided Master Planning services, including planning for theatrical and audiovisual technical systems.
NOT TO DLR GROUP STANDARD The Nassau Station Observatory was built in 1957 and houses a research grade telescope. The Geauga Park District acquired the building from Case Western Reserve University and wishes to use it for display and education programs for school groups. The original observatory building is comprised of a 2-story brick structure with a steel observatory dome and a 1-story portion that is brick veneer on wood stud partitions. The existing building is upgraded with minor improvements to the interior and exterior finishes. A masonry addition to the rear includes toilet facilities and an elevator to provide accessibility to the second story observatory dome and telescope. A new roof structure is built over the existing single story portion and extends over the new restrooms.
Project Questionnaire Please fill in answers to the following questions with as much information as you have or know based on the current phase of the project.  This information will be entered into DLR Group’s Vision system as well as be used to develop marketing and public relation materials.    Today’s Date: 2-7-11   Name of Project: Mendelson Warehouse Renovation                                                       Location: Dayton, Ohio   Client: Jeff Samuelson – JZ Cos. (developer)   Sandy Mendelson – Property Owner   Project’s current phase: Pre-Design   Are their images available and approved to use?  Yes     Background/General Information Is this a new facility or renovation of an existing facility?  Renovation Why is the facility being built/renovated?  Convert into leasable office space, retail, and living. If it is being renovated, when was it originally built?  1907 What is the SF estimate?   Break out SF of each separate area. 212,570 BGSF Parking – 34,267 Retail – 17,000 Office – 42,000 Residential – 68,000 What is the capacity of the facility?  NA Do you know any project milestone dates (groundbreaking, construction start, grand opening?)  Project currently on hold. What is the estimated month/year completion date?  See above. What is the estimated cost?   $37.1 M What services did DLR Group provide for the facility?  Architecture – Design and Planning What project delivery method is being used?  (ie Design-Build, CM at risk, Design, Bid, Build)  TBD Who is the Construction Manager or Contractor?  NA  What other firms were contracted out and what services did they provide?  Earl Reeder and Associates, Inc. – Architect of Record What DLR Group employees worked on the project and what was their role?  Michael LeBoeuf – Lead DesignerMike Lindsey – Project ArchitectTodd Orr – Project Manager   Facility Design   What concerns/challenges did the designers have before beginning the process?  How did designers overcome these concerns or challenges?  What unique features are included in the design?  Why are they unique?  Are there any site constraints?  What was done to overcome any site constraints?  If this is a renovation, what items are being improved/expanded?  What safety features are included in the design of the facility?  How does the design appeal to employees/visitors using the facility?  Are there any interior features that set the facility apart from others? How?  Are there any exterior features that set the facility apart from others? How?  Is there a signature focal point of the facility? If so, why is it significant?  What materials were used to complete the facility?   Are the materials cost effective and are they appealing to the community?  How does the facility benefit the community?  What sustainable design features were considered or incorporated into the facility design?  Were there any other major considerations when designing this facility?  What was the community attitude toward the new/renovated facility?   Should this project be considered for any design awards?  Why?    Comments In your opinion -how does this project reflect DLR Group’s brand statement listen.DESIGN.deliver?  What other comments can you provide about the facility?  What were the biggest design elements of the project to mention in marketing and PR materials?  Quotes from key DRL Group employees about the project.  Quotes from Key Client Contacts?  Who can we contact to solicit a client reference letter or quote?
New athletic building-Exteror Signage Add Service Initial Conceptual package and fabrication of sign
NOT TO BRAND STANDARD: DLR Group programmed, planned, and designed the renovation of the existing Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) Operations and Maintenance Building into a Welcome Center for the Secrest Arboretum. Constructed in 1966, the existing building is a single story high bay structure currently used for campus and farm equipment maintenance. The new Welcome Center involved the total renovation of approximately 75 percent of the existing facility in an initial phase of work. The work included complete demolition and replacement of the existing concrete slab, complete removal and re-insertion of mechanical and electrical systems, and complete interior renovations. The renovated building possesses interpretive galleries, three multi-purpose spaces that can accommodate OARDC/ATI classes, Arboretum and community events, and green industry meetings, and administrative offices for the Arboretum staff. Select demolition and aesthetic upgrades to the exterior of the building, including a new planted facade screen, and enhancements to the site allow for a new entrance and image befitting the Secrest Arboretum. DLR Group provided architecture, MEP and structural engineering design services.
NOT TO BRAND STANDARD DLR Group, in association with TKDA Architects, designed the restoration and renovation of the historic NorShor Theatre in downtown Duluth, Minnesota. Composed of three interwoven buildings (the 1910 Orpheum Theatre, the 1941 Annex and the Temple Opera Building), the current NorShor Theatre is being developed for use by the Duluth Playhouse, one of the nation’s oldest community theatres, as well as for live music and other potential uses. The goal is to rehabilitate the theatre to the standard of a 1940s Art Deco-themed theatre while meeting modern standards and codes for entertainment venues. The Orpheum building, which houses the auditorium and stage, is overhauled with all new finishes, new seating and a re-raked floor. A new built-up parterre seating zone separates the audience chamber from a new bar / lounge located beneath the existing historic balcony. The existing stage has been lowered and expanded into the audience chamber. The stage features a new orchestra pit, theatrical rigging system, and state-of-the-art rear projection A/V system. At the balcony level, a stage and demising wall that had been added after the original construction has been removed and the balcony face rebuilt using details from the 1941 construction. Lobby and lounge spaces will receive new finishes, a new concessions zone, and a new bar. New toilet facilities have been expanded into an adjacent former tenant space. The Annex building has been renovated from bottom to top. The building which once housed a series of small tenant spaces, vacant street-level storefronts, and parking decks, has now been transformed into an integral part of the theatre operations. The basement now incorporates performer support spaces such as dressing rooms, wardrobe, green room and toilet/shower rooms. The street level storefronts now function as new lobby and gathering space. The second floor now includes the offices for the Duluth Play House as well as their scene shop. The third floor houses three large rehearsal studios as well as the connection to the city-wide skywalk system. On the exterior, the 1940s Art Deco marquee at the main entrance will be restored, exterior windows, brick, and decorative terracotta work will be repaired, and original entry doors will be refurbished. Minor upgrades to the Temple Opera building include a new sprinkler system and roof.
New athletic building-Exteror Signage Add Service Initial Conceptual package and fabrication of sign
Design Achievement – Welcoming more than 50,000 patrons annually, DLR Group’s design replaces the existing Freeman Stage at Bayside with a new, larger amphitheater emerging as the Coastal Arts Pavilion at Freeman Park. The new venue increases seating capacity and accessibility, and offers expanded amenities. Inspired by the surrounding coastal nature, a new iconic canopy floats over the fixed seating; the structure appears translucent during the daytime, and light-filled and glowing during evening performances. Gentle slopes covered with natural coastal vegetation form the venue’s lawn seating. The site takes advantage of the location, positioning social gathering spaces at the coastal edge and orienting the lawn to promote views of the water and a golf course. The design reduces visual barriers, such as guardrails and retaining walls, to create a more equitable and enjoyable patron experience. The current stage will remain open during construction, and is envisioned to become a patron gathering space within the new venue site. Scope Summary – Encompassing a site area of four acres and total building area of 41,200 SF, the project includes a new amphitheater with covered seating for 1,150 patrons, open-air fixed seats for an additional 850 patrons, and lawn seating for 2,000. Together, the stage and canopy occupy 19,600 SF. Front-of-house buildings with an aggregate building area of 8,000 SF comprise a box office at the main gate, a two-story administrative building, toilets, and concessions. The 13,600-SF back-of-house area includes performance support spaces, dressing rooms, a multi-purpose room, and loading dock. Staff parking is located adjacent to the back-of-house area and visitor parking is situated north of the main entrance. Existing parking will be reconfigured to allow for higher capacity. To build the new venue, existing structures at the site will be razed and fill will be brought in to create the 13-foot-tall sloped lawn seating area. DLR Group is providing architectural, MEP and structural engineering, theater technical, lighting, acoustics, audiovisual, security, and information transport/telecommunications design services.
See Project #25-13064-00 for Project Descriptions for Phases 1 and 2
Design Achievement - The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center developed a $3b plan for a new suburban outpatient care program that supports growth in the region and excellence in academic healthcare. Outpatient Care Dublin is a 272,000 SF, $161.2m outpatient surgery center and medical office building that follows the prototype template developed by DLR Group and is the second of five ambulatory care facilities in the expansion plan. DLR Group’s design aligns with the design language of the expansion and the academic medical campus. DLR Group carefully crafted the interior to align with the institution’s brand and design standards to create features that are easily replicable and expandable in future projects. DLR Group’s design decisions were predicated on the institution’s operational processes and future goals. The exterior design concept is by Pelli Clarke Pelli. Scope Summary - The project was constructed on a 34-acre site between the new Shiers Ring Road extension and SR 33 Highway. The initial phase project includes a 150,000 SF, five-story medical office building that houses primary care, family medical, and specialty medical clinics and a 115,000 SF, three-story ambulatory surgery center that includes urgent care, imaging, rehabilitation, endoscopy, and ambulatory. A unique aspect of this campus is the focus on orthopedics, sports medicine, and joint care. Patient amenities include a café, registration services, community conferencing space, retail pharmacy, large exterior courtyard, and covered drop-off zone. The site and building are designed to allow for future expansion with a 216,000 SF, 90-bed inpatient hospital. DLR Group provided medical programming, planning, architecture, interiors, FFE, and structural, mechanical, electrical, and IT/AV engineering services.
DLR Group was retained by MKSK landscape architects to help support the design of a new amphitheater for the City of Youngstown, Ohio. The proposed amphitheater will sit within new urban park along the Mahoning River on the former site of several steel mills. The new performance venue, planned to accommodate community and national touring acts, will hold up to 4500 patrons (1000 on a lower paved area, 3000 on a lawn, and 500 in VIP seating terraces. In addition to the seating areas, DLR Group programmed, planned, and designed the stage and stage canopy, a back-of-house performer support building, a front-of-house box office and safety building, and a combined concession and restroom facility. DLR Group provided architecture, structural, mechanical, electrical, and AV, theatrical, and lighting services through schematic design. The stage and support buildings are designed to reflect the industrial heritage of Youngstown, both in form, articulation, and materiality.
Design Achievement - As the eighth outdoor Levitt Pavilion in the nation, the Levitt Pavilion Dayton offers free, live music from across all genres, featuring emerging, as well as acclaimed local, national, and international artists, and is used by schools, arts groups, and other non-profit organizations for diverse, high-caliber programming. The venue is envisioned as a gathering space for the community – accessible to all – and an engine for development and economic growth. DLR Group’s design transforms Dave Hall Plaza, an underutilized urban green space within a historic neighborhood, into a vital center for the arts within the community. The venue’s canopy, known as “The Wing,” and adjacent support building, known as “The Hangar,” evoke Dayton’s deep historical and current connections to aviation. A backlit perforated metal panel along the perimeter of the support building and canopy uplighting create an ambient glow. The location takes advantage of convenient, nearby parking, public transportation, and bike paths. Scope Summary - Situated in the southwest corner of the plaza, the new outdoor amphitheater comprises a 2,500 SF building with support areas, including dressing rooms, a green room, and a management office, and an adjacent 1,500 SF outdoor stage with state-of-the-art sound and lighting. A fabric-clad canopy cantilevers over the stage. Off of the green room is the “parklet,” a private outdoor congregation space for performers and backstage personnel. Significant landscape improvements to the plaza create a 28,000 SF lawn, which serves as open seating for the venue. A new 2,000 SF service building nearby includes toilet rooms, a first aid station, and park maintenance storage. The project is being undertaken by a unique partnership between the City of Dayton and local and national nonprofit organizations, Friends of Levitt Pavilion Dayton and Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, respectively. DLR Group provided architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, theatrical, audiovisual, and telecommunications services.
Design Achievement – WOSU Public Media, the premiere public media station in Central Ohio, wanted to consolidate its separate television and radio broadcast facilities into a single location within a new mixed used development adjacent to the main gateway to The Ohio State University. DLR Group’s concept study envisions the new building as a state-of-the-art, digital facility that addresses the future of broadcast media and supports WOSU’s mission of enriching lives across Ohio through on-air and online content, community events, and educational resources. The blocking and stacking strategy places large program elements such as the black box and broadcast studios that do not desire natural light to the east against an opaque wall shared with an adjacent property. The building facades along the main thoroughfares remain transparent, providing visual connection from the lobby, community, event, and work spaces to the street. Scope Summary – DLR Group developed a space program, fit-out options, and a statement of probable project cost for the new facility as well as exterior renderings of the massing concept. The study anticipates 62,000 GSF arranged on four stories plus a basement and a first-floor mezzanine. Major program elements include: a multipurpose/community room adjacent to the public entry; a 150-seat black box space for live performance and broadcast; radio and TV studios and related support and content spaces; office spaces; a technology core; a loading and parking zone; and infrastructure and a rooftop mechanical penthouse. DLR Group provided planning and programming services for architecture, MEP and structural engineering, and technology design.
Design Achievement - Building on the success of the McCoy Community Center for the Arts, the New Albany Community Foundation spearheaded a collaborative effort to construct an outdoor amphitheater on the Learning Community Campus west of the McCoy Center in New Albany, Ohio. The Charles and Charleen Hinson Amphitheater, coupled with the McCoy Center, forms a cultural district that serves both school and community uses. DLR Group’s design for the amphitheater complements the function and aesthetics of the McCoy Center, also designed by our firm, as well as the overall aesthetic of this planned community. The facility is designed to be an intimate venue, allowing for superb sightlines, acoustics, and performer and audience engagement. The multi-purpose stage accommodates symphony orchestras, popular music, and summer theatrical productions under shelter. The buildings and landscape are integrated to create an immersive park-like setting for outdoor entertainment, with substantial landscaping and ivy-covered fencing. An embracing arbor wraps the tiered lawn, behind which is a pergola encompassing the area. The space, while technologically advanced, possesses a warmth, scale, and articulation that reference the agrarian history of Central Ohio and the Jeffersonian character embedded throughout New Albany’s built civic fabric. Scope Summary - The new venue accommodates 1,225 patrons and is optimally situated in close proximity to the academic campus, main shopping/dining district, and recently renovated Rose Run Park corridor. The stage canopy serves as the iconic element, anchoring the venue and constructed of heavy laminated wood arches. The stage uses a glulam structure with high-performance translucent manufactured fabric on the exterior, enabling the building to change its appearance and transparency from day to night. The proscenium opening is 42 feet. Support structures, such as a back-of-house building with dressing rooms, restrooms, and storage, are architecturally subservient and covered in vegetation. Front-of-house support areas include control booths and two followspot areas/stands. The venue offers various seating opportunities and experiences, including lawn seating, catered VIP tables, high-top seating within the arbor, and intimate party patios flanking the stage. DLR Group provided architecture, interiors, planning, mechanical engineering, structural engineering, electrical engineering, acoustical design, audiovisual design, lighting design, and low-voltage design services.
STUDY AND FOLLOWING IMPLEMENTATION DLR Group\|Westlake Reed Leskosky designed the chancel and nave renovation for The University Circle United Methodist Church. The renovation transforms the original chancel and nave of the 1928 church, designated as a Cleveland Landmark and designed by noted architect Bertram Goodhue, into a more open, flexible and accessible space that unifies congregants with the sanctuary. The design of the renovation reflects the current philosophy and utilization of the church, while being sensitive to and respectful of the original architecture. To create a more open and accessible chancel area allowing for greater flexibility of use, intricately carved wood-paneled walls flanking the pulpit and lectern were removed and salvaged; the raised choir seating on either side of the chancel was removed and the pews were retained and stored; decorative wood modesty walls in front of the risers were salvaged and reused; and the altar was reworked to be portable allowing the chancel to flexibly accommodate a variety of uses. To provide accessibility to the chancel floor which is 42 inches above the sanctuary floor, a wheelchair lift was installed in the adjacent stairwell with the wheelchair lift door integrated into the original wood-paneled wall. A section of the original floor featuring a decorative pattern of slate inset within the marble was retained and refinished. This floor was extended, matching the original marble and slate. The new open and accessible chancel design allows for multiple configurations to serve numerous event types, including choirs, dance performers, organists, instrumental groups, and speakers. Since its completion, the church has hosted several events in the space that could not have been accommodated in the previous chancel. Completion date: 10.2014 Construction cost: $610,000 Size: 54,150 SF (overall building) DLR Group\|WRL provided Architecture, Electrical Engineering, Structural Engineering, Audiovisual and Lighting design.
Design Achievement - Founded in 1933, the Massillon Museum is a regional Ohio history and art museum serving a historic, heavily industrial community. The Museum attracts visitors from around the region to view a myriad of permanent and temporary exhibitions. To address current and future growth in programs, staff, and collections, the Museum decided to significantly expand the footprint of its existing facility, designed by our firm in the 1990s as an adaption of a 1930s Art Deco building. DLR Group's current design expands the museum via an addition and significant renovations. The addition’s design vocabulary expresses a modern spirit while referencing the historic original fabric of adjacent buildings and the industrial heritage of the region. Scope Summary - The project scope encompassed a 10,000 SF, four-story addition, comprising a new gallery for the exhibition of artifacts and memorabilia from pro football coaching legend and Ohio native Paul Brown and the Massillon Tiger Football program, an event space that opens up to an adjacent civic lawn, additional classroom spaces, and administration space. Renovations within the existing museum, totaling approximately 1,500 SF, provide for the expansion of the existing café, a new gift shop, and conversion of existing administration areas to gallery space. Renovations within recently acquired adjacent buildings, totaling approximately 5,000 SF, allow for additional work space, a ceramics studio, additional gallery space, building support, and the creation of a new arts garden. DLR Group provided architecture; MEP and structural engineering; and audiovisual, lighting, acoustic and information transport design for the project.
Please use PO # 4553608415
Design Achievement –The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame welcomed more than 10 million visitors from around the globe to its waterfront location in downtown Cleveland and generated more than $2 billion in economic impact in its first 20 years. With a mission to “engage, teach, and inspire through the power of rock & roll,” the museum attracts approximately 500,000 visitors annually, 90% from outside the local area. Responding to the museum’s continuing need to maintain and improve its facility, DLR Group’s design of a series of renovations enhances patron amenities, replaces the existing Hall of Fame exhibit with a new Signature Experience Theater, and transforms the brick-lined, 65,000 SF outdoor plaza into a community gathering place filled with the sounds of frequent live performances and other events. These renovations follow prior interior renovations designed by the firm to improve wayfinding and provide improved graphics, casework, and technology upgrades in exhibit areas. Scope Summary - Beginning in 2015 and following a previous round of upgrades, DLR Group implemented a series of improvements that included a new lower-level box office and ticketing lobby, new exhibit graphics and signage as a prelude to the main entrance, new entrance-level graphics and wayfinding, a new donor wall, and an exhibit installation. Improvements to the south entrance plaza include a new exterior café that uses a shipping container as its base and a new outdoor performance area with loose seating, accommodating standing room audiences or temporary seating arrangements. Designed as a 20’ x 20’ semi-permanent modular platform, the stage features a removable topper integrated with full audiovisual, lighting, and theatrical systems. A graphically treated shipping container designed as storage for audiovisual equipment when not in use is located adjacent to the stage. DLR Group, working in collaboration with BRC Imagination Arts, provided architecture; MEP and structural engineering design; exhibit design; architectural and exhibit display lighting; exhibit/interactive audiovisual design; theater technical; show control programming; information transport; and wayfinding/graphic design services. All images courtesy of BRC Imagination Arts.
Design Achievement - Seeking to develop a musically interactive exhibit with a focus on authenticity, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s new Garage Exhibit gives amateurs and professionals alike the opportunity to hold live jam sessions. DLR Group’s design recreates the look and feel of a garage band rehearsal space providing museum patrons and travelling bands the opportunity to generate an authentic sound with real instruments. Designed as a mixing space, the exhibit invites people to meet, produce music, and perform as they move fluidly through five zones dedicated to facilitating human connection through music. Materials used throughout the exhibit – faux wood stud framing, fabric wrapped acoustical panels, metal roll-up garage doors, industrial light fixtures, polished concrete floors, and reclaimed wood façade – replicate the unfinished interior of a garage. The design employs several strategies to control sound bleed between various parts of the exhibit, while allowing for some sound bleed to the rest of the museum, freely advertising the exhibit. Scope Summary - The new 5,598 SF exhibit renovation comprises five principal zones. Patrons can play real instruments while being guided through video tutorials at music instruction stations in Zone 1, while a lounge space in Zone 2 offers a more relaxed setting for impromptu jams with real acoustic instruments. Zone 3, “The Garage,” is a performance zone for guest bands or museum patrons. This space is fit out with the typical five-piece band gear and PA system with microphones. Zone 4 consists of a series of relevant artifacts, mostly guitars, basses, and kick-drum heads from notable “garage bands.” An interactive station in Zone 5 encourages visitors to engage with a touch screen app to design custom band logos, which can then be purchased and printed on a range of goods such as t-shirts, hats, and stickers. Sound bleed control solutions include fitting out interactive instrument stations with overhead sound focusing dome speakers, directing sound toward the recipient and into the floor, enclosing drum kits in STC-rated glass rooms with sealed doors, positioning carpets at each interactive station to absorb sound energy, and partitioning the exhibit with overhead garage doors to limit sound transmission when closed. DLR Group provided architecture, interior design, specifications, mechanical, electrical and structural engineering, acoustical, telecom, and lighting design services. DLR Group worked in collaboration with Benchmark Craftsmen who provided exhibit design and fabrication services.
PO # 4553608415
NOT TO BRAND STANDARDS 20-Year Master Plan for the Blossom Music Center and Severance Hall $20,982,581 (Blossom - estimated), $18,777,161 (Severance Hall - estimated); 2017 (master plan) Implementation to be completed in phases as funding allows. The 2017 master plan includes phased improvements to the Blossom Music Center and Severance Hall with the overall objective to enhance artistic excellence, patron experience, revenue generation, accessibility, sustainability, and historical precedence. The project included the assessment of site conditions, infrastructure, and facilities. Visioning goals focused on maximizing utilization / return on investment and optimizing the patron experience for both venues, as well as increasing the connection to nature for Blossom and balancing modernization with preservation for Severance Hall.
Design Achievement - This project represents an opportunity for the Ohio Department of Corrections to change the ways in which it provides and delivers rehabilitative services to those placed in its care, to align with the objectives of its defined mission. It is the intent of the project to provide spaces and environments that are as normative as possible while still providing an appropriate level of security and operational efficiency. The project site will expand from the current 25-acre enclosed area at the Pickaway Correctional Institution (PCI) to approximately 75-acres, once it is combined with the nearby Orient Correctional Institution (OCI) site. The new facility will house a mix of populations including chronic health needs and mentally ill inmates, geriatrics (including oxygen, dementia, assisted living and hospice), therapeutic community and general population inmates. Scope Summary - This multi-year Master Plan will involve phasing of construction, operational analysis and implementation into the new and renovated facilities, and consideration of security and operational aspects of a fully operational correctional complex. The project implementation will span several biennia and is dependent on funding approval at each interval. As such, the Master Plan must account for each phase having the ability to operate independent on any future phase being constructed. Upon final implementation, the two campuses will house approximately 3,300 inmates over a multi-year period, forming a unified campus consisting of several smaller communities based on inmate classification. New construction will amount to more than 800,000 SF of space, including 188 mental health beds, housing, support services, food service, medical facilities and administrative spaces. DLR Group is providing programming, planning and design services.
Hiram College, a legacy Northeast Ohio campus, serves as the heart of city and neighborhood development. Founded in 1850, its range of facilities represents every pedagogical model for learning in the last 150 years – including a wide range of homes used as departmental centers. With a current enrollment of 1,000, the College needed a resilient plan for facilities and land-use that can sustain and transform its instruction, research, residential living, and operations while enabling it to grow to 1,250 students within the next few years. DLR Group’s campus plan re-positions the physical campus by translating the academic and program re-structuring that occurred as part of the institution’s transformative new strategic vision: “The New Liberal Arts” into facility planning. The planning process involved specific conceptual visioning for several initiatives: re-considering the existing student union, developing a new housing complex, establishing a sense of place in existing campus greens, creating a student-centered service and learning commons, establishing a highly visible, engaging, and interactive business + communications hub, and strengthening the integration of the College’s historic-interest houses into the campus fabric. DLR Group provided planning, benchmarking metrics for space utilization, best practices, and industry trends.
Design Achievement: Visitors arriving at the redeveloped Ford Nature Center, occupying an historic stone mansion originally designed by Charles F. Owsley for C. S. Robinson in 1913 and nestled in Mill Creek MetroPark, will experience an eye-opening introduction into all that the MetroParks have to offer. With a complete refresh of all exhibits, including the addition of a new 1,500 SF gallery that overlooks the building’s lush landscape, visitors are oriented to Northeast Ohio’s wildlife and vegetation as well as various hiking and biking excursions for which the Ford Nature Center may serve as a launching pad. DLR Group’s design organizes the new and renovated public areas around a new elevator and grand staircase, introducing a large opening in the main level floor with visibility into the now accessible lower level. The gallery addition, planned at the lower level and set into the site’s topography, expands the building’s size without impacting its historic character. The planted roof terrace over the new gallery nearly conceals its presence from the exterior. Scope Summary: Improved amenities such as new public restrooms, gift shop, and planted terrace provide convenience and moments of respite for any adventurer. MetroParks staff likewise will benefit from completely renovated office spaces on the upper story and the introduction of handicapped access. The detached garage structure, formerly utilized for storage, now expands the Ford Nature Center’s programming offerings through its conversion into an Education Building with a large multipurpose room and classroom accessible directly from the site to support a number of childhood education programs. DLR Group provided architecture, engineering, planning and interior design services.
Design Achievement: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center developed a $3 billion plan for a new suburban outpatient care program that supports growth in the region and excellence in academic healthcare. Outpatient Care Powell is a 209,000 SF, $120 M medical office building and ambulatory healthcare center that follows the prototype template developed by DLR Group. The plan utilizes a flexible, modular organization that becomes the framework for various medical specialties determined by the community’s particular needs. A central courtyard organizes the life of this facility around outdoor spaces for dining, multipurpose gatherings, and intimate reflection. Evocative of an academic courtyard, it serves as a recognizable image of a collegiate campus setting. The building’s materiality recalls that of the University’s main campus. DLR Group carefully crafted the interior to align with the institution’s brand and design standards to create features that are easily replicable and expandable in future projects. DLR Group’s design decisions were predicated on the institution’s operational processes and future goals. Pelli Clarke & Partners served as exterior design advisor. Scope Summary: The project was constructed on a 30-acre site at the northeast corner of Home Road and Sawmill Parkway, across from Olentangy Liberty High School. The initial phase project includes a 150,000 SF, five-story medical office building that houses essential health services and subspecialty clinics and a 59,000 SF, two-story ambulatory healthcare center that includes imaging, rehabilitation, and endoscopy. Patient amenities include a café, registration services, community conferencing space, retail pharmacy, large exterior courtyard, and covered drop-off zone. The site and building are designed to allow for future expansion with a 50,000 SF ambulatory surgery center or alternate program. DLR Group provided medical programming, planning, architecture, interiors, FFE, and structural, mechanical, electrical, and IT/AV engineering services.
Design Achievement - Employees on the first floor of Nestlé’s Harper Road Building are utilizing a new workplace model that allows them to choose where to work in the office based on the task at hand. Nestlé’s key ambition behind the renovation was to develop an environment where spaces are attributed to activities rather than individuals, inspired by their recently rolled out corporate design standards and guidelines. DLR Group worked with Nestlé to create a design that introduced a continuum of task-oriented spaces ranging from quiet rooms for high focus, open office spaces with sit-to-stand desks for daily tasks and routine production, as well as shared social hubs and conference rooms for formal/informal degrees of collaboration. The spaces are organized with attention to adjacencies for integration: every employee can easily access the different environments regardless of where they are working on any given day. The Harper Road Building was formerly comprised of offices, test kitchens, and conference spaces that worked well for business in the past. The renovation reduces the number of closed spaces – even eliminating entirely the private office – to better reflect how employees work today. At the remaining enclosed spaces, floor-to-ceiling glass storefronts provide a high degree of openness and transparency. Scope Summary - This project was a complete renovation of the 55,500 SF First Floor of Nestlé’s Harper Road Building in Solon, Ohio. This included selective demolition and construction of walls and ceilings, finishes and fixtures of all types, and FF&E. As the standards did not address ceilings or colors, the team developed options geared toward imprinting the new activity-based organization. Ceiling and lighting patterns further distinguish shared/hub spaces and workstation areas. The color palette was customized toward a complementary finish palette attuned to northeast Ohio. The program includes telco booths and quiet rooms; open office spaces and huddle rooms; conference rooms of varying sizes, and two large hubs for socialization and collaboration. DLR Group provided architecture, interior design, MEP engineering, structural engineering, fire protection engineering, IT/telecom, security, and FF&E services.
PO# 4553606651
Saint Ignatius Four Square Welsh Academy Middle School DESIGN ACHIEVEMENT Saint Ignatius Welsh Academy, an entity within Saint Ignatius High School, is a new middle school located near downtown Cleveland in the lively Ohio City neighborhood. The vision for the Welsh Academy had been in the works for over 25 years before DLR Group was enlisted to help the project come to fruition. The school district wanted to provide an environment for under-served middle school boys who could be academically successful at a college-prep school like the esteemed Saint Ignatius High School. The historic nearby First Reformed Church was identified as the perfect solution to meet the district’s needs. The church building itself stood for the better part of a century and a half, and its structure and façade showed signs of severe weathering and age. The exterior was fully restored to reflect its origins while the interior was completely gutted and converted into the new middle school. Upon entering the facility, students and staff are greeted by a warm fireplace sitting area with soft seating, reception, and locker space to drop off items. Support spaces throughout the building include a large, open commons, classroom studios, a learning stair, and breakout rooms. The original stained glass church oculus provides a warm, colorful ambiance for the student area that features various seating capacities for reading, group work, and one-on-one time. SCOPE SUMMARY The 11,630 SF fully-renovated facility serves 75 students, grades 6-8. The site is situated on urban landscape adjacent to the Saint Ignatius campus, which students and staff are able to access. A former addition was replaced by the new one and hosts the classroom studio and includes access to an outdoor classroom. The design also features NextGeneration classroom studios, a learning commons, teacher collaboration areas, small group rooms, gathering stairs, as well as breakout spaces and a large group room. The new Welsh Academy middle school is innovative and forward-thinking, yet complements the historic aspects of the building.
This is the CA Phase of this project on a subnumber. Main Number is 25-18101-00 thru CD's
Design Achievement – Supporting the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s multi-phase Centennial Transformation project, the first phase or “Gateway” project commemorates the institution’s 100-year anniversary with the completion of three renovated spaces: the courtyard, the auditorium, and a new “Current Science Gallery.” DLR Group’s renovation design increases and modernizes the primary uses for these spaces and previews the design intent of the larger future phases. Making the largest impact, the renovated centralized courtyard creates a place for respite, outdoor events, and interpretation of natural areas and native plant conservation. A new water feature, inspired by the geology and form of natural waterfalls in the Cleveland region, features local Berea sandstone. The watershed court features a map of the local watershed etched into bluestone paving that interprets flow patterns of local streams and rivers. A new feature screen wall acts as a background made up of glass fiber reinforced concrete panels organized in a modular flowing pattern. The upgraded auditorium features modernized technology and finishes and allows visibility into audience chamber the from the adjacent gallery. With the introduction of the new “Current Science Gallery,” the museum now has a dedicated space to display and present the scientific research that is happening within the institution to science-minded visitors. Scope summary – This phase of the project included the full renovation of the 16,500 SF courtyard and the 7,500 SF auditorium along with the creation of a new 1,500 SF “Current Science Gallery.” The auditorium was reshaped to enhance the acoustics with new wood paneled walls with integrated lighting and new sound and light locks. The audiovisual and theatrical technology was upgraded and incorporated into a new in-house sound mix position. The existing door vestibules were reused as all glass acoustic portals to allow for views into the auditorium. Designed for flexibility, the Current Science Gallery has aimable gallery lighting within the acoustical metal ceiling slots and large built in display cases. The audiovisual technology allows scientists to display microscopic specimens on a large video panel for all to view. DLR Group provided planning, architecture, MEP and structural engineering, interiors, and technology design, including acoustics, audiovisual, lighting, and theatrical.

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.