San Diego, California, USA
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, encircled by seawater on three sides, is a project by Tucker Sadler Architects and Burton Landscape Architecture Studio. It was realized through a collaborative effort between the San Diego Symphony and top construction professionals.
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park has recently been awarded a 2023 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
He and his team were responsible for The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park as a whole, encompassing the performance shell, backstage artist support spaces, three professional kitchens, underground restrooms, a gracefully sloped seating area for up to 10,000, and a park open to the public on one of the most beautiful settings between San Diego Bay and the San Diego skyline.
A key partner was Soundforms, the designer of the performance shell.
Soundforms and its London partners Flanagan Lawrence, Expedition, and ES Global designed the award-winning 2012 mobile acoustic performance shell (MAPS) to be temporary and acoustically excellent.
Working together with Tucker Sadler, Soundforms expanded the design to accommodate a large orchestra with chorus and soloists and to be a permanent structure on the Embarcadero Marina Park South site.
Sound Consultant Shawn Murphy worked closely with San Diego Symphony CEO Martha Gilmer and the entire design team to ensure the creation of the best possible acoustic environment.
He introduced to the team a San Francisco-based firm, Salter, dedicated to acoustic and sound engineering and audiovisual components.
Berkeley-based Meyer Sound designed the signature Constellation System, used here in its first outdoor installation, which creates an onstage acoustic equivalent to the high standard of indoor concert halls.
The combination of the shell design with Salter’s acoustic paneling, the Meyer Constellation system, and the custom-designed L-Acoustic surround reinforcement system has created the best possible acoustic experience for performers, which translates across a wide range of musical genres into an extraordinary sonic experience for audiences.
Another key partner in creating the performance shell is the Australia-based company Fabritecture, which developed and oversaw the technical design, fabrication and installation of the tensile structure of the performance shell, as well as the backstage support spaces, executive kitchen, the box office and two dining pavilions.
Two further design partners are HLB, which completed the architectural lighting design, and Schuler Shook, which completed the theater lighting and rigging design.
Burton Landscape Architecture Studio is the official landscape architect of The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.
The 3.7-acre centerpiece park and event venue developed and managed by the San Diego Symphony on the city’s scenic Embarcadero, The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park is the first permanent outdoor venue in the orchestra’s century-long history.
Designed to host more than 100 concerts and events year-round while offering 360-degree views of downtown, the marina, and the bay, the project has been developed in partnership with the Unified Port of San Diego with 96% of the $85 million cost raised privately by the Symphony.
The Rady Shell provides a 4,800-square-foot stage sheltered within a canopy designed with highly advanced acoustical and lighting systems.
The 1.25-acre audience area provides flexible seating for as many as 10,000 listeners.
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park stands along the Embarcadero in Downtown San Diego, where it is easily accessible to the Gaslamp Quarter, the San Diego Convention Center, Petco Park, Seaport Village, Barrio Logan’s Chicano Park, and the Hotel del Coronado.
The Rady Shell is a permanent venue that features concentric, widening, nautilus seashell-style rings as its canopy, the structure that reaches a height of 57 feet and a width of 92 feet at the front of the stage.
In addition to the covered stage, the back-of-the-house facilities include an educational training room, state-of-the-art performance practice space over-looking the San Diego Bay, a green room, kitchen, a behind-the-stage patio with a public sunset-steps viewing area and seating area, with culinary celebrity chef, Richard Blais kitchen creating seasonal menus especially for either table service or bento box favorites for delivery.
The flexible audience seating within the 1.25-acre site seats up to 10,000 audience members and is defined by a harbor promenade lined with public benches lit in brilliant blue lighting at night within the 3.7-acre Jacobs Park.
The design of The Rady Shell of Jacobs Park includes a dramatic entrance with dual staircase, terraced seating, unobstructed stage views, new public restrooms, expanded public promenade, environmentally sustainable landscaping and trees, architectural-grade white concrete retaining walls with a lighting wall wash, sand-based synthetic turf designed to reduce water consumption.
The adjacent Presbys Plaza is a 12,875 square foot open-air casual dining area with local chefs providing cuisines made fresh every day.
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park is a permanent structure on the waterfront of the Embarcadero Marina Park South site in San Diego, CA.
The onstage Meyer Constellation Acoustic System employs proprietary digital technology to enable performers to hear and respond to one another as well as they would in a top-tier concert hall.
The L-Acoustics system projects sound to the audience from six meticulously angled acoustic towers, three on each side of the stage.
Artists and lighting designers create visual media that is illuminated on the exterior canopy of The Rady Shell via an advanced LED lighting system providing an additional theatrical experience for guest.
Beneath the plaza, there are 64 permanent restrooms and a first aid room for guest use, as well as private offices.
Project: The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park
Architects: Tucker Sadler Architects, Inc.
Landscape Architects: Burton Landscape Architecture Studio
General Contractor: Rudolph and Sletten, Inc.
Client: San Diego Symphony
Photographers: Darren Bradley Architectural Photography