Industry Performing Arts Center
This project, designed in an adaptive reuse-focused studio, proposes a performing arts center concept for the redesign of Female Ward G in H.H. Richardson’s abandoned Buffalo State Psychiatric Center. In 1974, every last patient evacuated the historic asylum. In 2012 - after four decades untouched - the center’s conversion into a hotel and museum began. Since the hotel’s scope only covers the central portion of the site, complementary future uses for the attached wards are needed. A performing arts center was natural given Buffalo’s vibrant performing arts community. The project focused on providing the performing artists of Buffalo with a home base they could do work in as well as simply be in. Included are a black box theater, a proscenium theater, rehearsal rooms, classrooms, dance studios, a cafe, office spaces, a resource library, a tech center, and more.