Social and Technical Impact Advancement Commendation
Project name: Nashua Center for the Arts
Project overview: The primary project goal is to contribute to downtown Nashua’s economic and cultural vitality. To achieve this, the Center needs to be a destination before, during, and after hours. It needs to be both integral to the place and a unique addition. The design intent was to connect to the city fabric and reveal the vitality within by adopting an “oyster and pearl” strategy: the “pearl” performance space is enclosed in a contextually responsive “shell”—the lobby mediates between the two. For economic, community, and sustainable design benefits, the project reuses an existing five-story 1924 masonry and wood building and the foundations of a 1960’s building. The audience chamber, stage, and front-of-house functions are constructed on the foundation (20,250 GSF). Additional lobby and back-of-house functions are housed in the apartment building (34,070 GSF). The existing 100’x100’ foundation footprint presented a challenge to achieving the seat count, ultimately requiring the city’s permission to slightly cantilever over the sidewalk. The result is three levels of seating: 430 retractable first-floor seats with the remainder on the Parterre and Balcony levels. The retractable seats allow a general admissions capacity of 1,000 and banquet seating of 270.
Project location: Nashua, New Hampshire
Firm name: ICON Architecture
Architect of Record: ICON Architecture
Completion: 2022
Jury comments: The siting, design and programming contribute immeasurably to downtown Nashua. The massing is sensitive to the context, responsive to the adjacent architecture and to the street, and at the same time, introduces a new and exciting vocabulary to the neighborhood. On the upper levels, where the somewhat bold negotiation with the city to cantilever over the sidewalk successfully allowed a viable theater size, the interaction with the sidewalk makes this building more publicly engaging, so well worth the effort. Overall, an exciting project to see so well designed and built in a smaller, historic city!
