Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Mikyoung Kim has completed the new Booth Theater and Arts Plaza that enhances civic life on Boston University’s campus while strengthening the arts campus, linking the department of Fine Arts, Music, and Theater Arts to the heart of this urban academic university.
The Booth Arts Plaza redefines flexible and vibrant academic quadrangles at this state-of-the-art production center dedicated to creativity, performance, and innovation.
The project has been awarded a 2020 Good Design Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
A glass façade and multi-purpose landscape blur the boundary between inside and out, creating flexible performance spaces and design labs for teaching and theater production.
The plaza was designed to be open and adaptable, acting as a stage for everyday life or seasonal outdoor performance and events.
As part of BU’s College of Fine Arts program, the plaza incorporates diverse programming for all students within this field of study; from acting, playwriting, music, theater, dance, and stage management.
Sheltered between the Fine Arts Building, the 808 Gallery, the Music Building, and the Production Center the plaza is designed to encourage student interface and collaboration.
A central plaza allows for students to attend performances as well as congregate to encourage social connections between the various creative departments.
Smaller nook spaces offer student fraternization and outdoor innovation spaces for cross-disciplinary creativity.
In addressing a challenging 7-foot elevation difference between street level and the performance building’s entrance, the plaza’s amphitheater seating defines a central gathering space and accommodates flexible programming, from large-scale performances to street activity and daily student interactions.
The view from the theater’s interior balcony to the plaza emphasizes the landscape’s place as a public stage.
The stepped configuration and materiality of the custom amphitheater combine metal, wood, and plant material into a pedestrian-scale landscape zone that encourages civic gathering and social interaction.
A combination of bench and planter units encourages both individual respite and group interaction.
The triangular geometry of everything from the paving joints to the benches and planter are mirrored in the façade panels that wrap the building, unifying the architecture and the landscape.
A simple, yet lush plant palette, together with natural materials, provides contrast to the modern glass and steel theater building, while also adding comfort and warmth to the site as a gathering space removed from the vehicular-centric urban environment of the university’s campus.
The woodland plants with all-season interest and a grove of trees go further to provide a diffuse screen for the adjacent fine arts building and the plaza’s outdoor performance space.
As part of the larger Commonwealth Avenue Renewal, a new citywide bike lane has been introduced on this site with a road realignment that creates a more generous pedestrian realm along this major arterial road.
This new landscape design introduces linear lights in the paving that subtly guide pedestrians to the adjacent academic buildings.
Theatrical lighting in the benches, paving and planting signal the important performance education happening within this area of the campus.
Additionally, a freestanding signage element beckons to passersby and solidifies the Booth Theater’s position as a new institutional icon for the university.
The Booth Arts Plaza has become an active civic space, where people pause along this busy streetscape to site and explore the approachable, stepped amphitheater. It serves as a central hub for the performing arts on BU’s campus.
The project design weaves a complex set of accessibility issues in an artful way to create a new typology of the urban quadrangle that encourages diversity and inclusion while highlighting creative research and performance on this educational campus.
Project: Boston University Booth Theater
Architects: Mikyoung Kim Design
Client: Boston University
