Project completed in collaboration with Cyrus Gagaza.

 

The Strand Theatre, an active but underused theater and community engagement hotspot is in a severe state of disrepair and at risk of shuttering. Metamorphosis is a design that intends to morph the Strand Theatre into an active participant of Upham’s Corner’s economic, cultural, and social fabric. With our approach, we hope to celebrate life and to create the means for the theater to prosper and change. The Strand will be adapted to be occupied at all times, with new programs filling the societal gap.

 

Metamorphosis transforms the Strand Theatre with two broad design moves. The first installs new, flexible, and multi-purpose public spaces that seek to connect the theater with its neighbors in Uphams Corner. At the southern end of the theater, a public enclosed courtyard is created, introducing plant life and sun into the sunken basement level of the Strand. The garden serves as a practice and exhibition space, with the repeated module being transformed into seating. The long entry hallway into the Strand is converted into an exterior public space, acting as a farmers market on some days and an exhibition space on others. The modular partitions divide the space and can be transformed to suit a number of purposes.

 

The primary method of Strand’s Metamorphosis is by inserting a data center into the theater. The data center is distributed throughout, utilizing the new “second skin” modular configuration of the public hallways. The servers are secured into lockers throughout the building, making a normally invisible infrastructure publicly seen. An addition onto the side of the Strand, a “hyperscale” data center, presents itself as an act of theater. This room presents itself as a chasm, with servers lined up on one wall, the server room is privately accessible but publicly seen, as it becomes the new wall of the theater. The room peels away from the exterior, presenting itself to the street, and casting twinkling lights into the theater space. The liquid cooling system is sustainable, giving hot water generated by the servers to the community as a way to share the wealth the data center generates. The revenue generated by the data center funds a new abundance of cultural activities in the Strand.