Design Excellence Awards

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Institutional/Educational Design Excellence Award
Presented to Gensler – Houston
Houston Ballet Center for Dance
Houston, Texas

Project Description

Houston Ballet’s decision to build a new Center for Dance in downtown required a state-of-the-art facility that could accommodate myriad needs of dancers and the administration. The largest facility for a professional dance company in the U.S., the new six-story Houston Ballet Center for Dance accommodates nine state-of-the-art rehearsal studios, a dance lab that replicates the Wortham Theater performance stage, dressing rooms, administration offices, a wardrobe workshop, student dorms, lounges, a shoe room, and other world-class amenities.

Relocating the Ballet to Houston’s downtown Theater District, it was critical to provide a space that optimized the health and comfort of the dancers, while exhibiting a consciousness about the community and the building’s surroundings. Reflective roofing, water-conserving plumbing fixtures, cork flooring, daylight-controlled window shades, self-adjusting lights, reused and refinished furniture, and on-site bike racks and showers are just a few of the design considerations that minimize energy use and contribute to the well-being of the building’s occupants, visitors, and the surrounding community.

The interior design achieves a gallery-like space within which the dancers become works of art. Large double-height windows filter the day’s best natural light into the dance studios while maximizing extraordinary views that overlook downtown Houston and the bayou. At night, the glowing studios showcase the dancers inside, creating a "billboard for dance" and expressing the City’s commitment to the Arts. Throughout the design of the interiors, a critical attention to detail remained paramount. While carefully orchestrating a tight, not-for-profit construction budget, the design team crafted graceful, seemingly effortless interior spaces that truly place ballet at center stage.

Judges Comments

• The space was well defined for the user, you can tell it was created for the dancers.
• Pattern on the glass was a great architectural feature.
• Great use of negative and positive space, the detail around the mirror is exceptional.
• Above and beyond.