pratt film/video
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firm: think! architecture and designsite: clinton hillSEPT
2015
In the film and video department at Pratt Institute, CNC-cut aluminum wraps a corner of the screening room.
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Clockwise from top left: A sound stage features chairs by Karim Rashid and a green-screen for video shoots. Maple, more commonly used for flooring, clads the underside of the screening room’s enclosure where it faces the lobby. Glass seperates the recording studio from its talent booth. Aluminum frames the front of spaces including the screenwriters’ classroom, set on top of the recording studio.
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”Animation and video have become
like the written word. Whatever field
you’re in, you’ll need them to commu-
nicate,“ Jorge Oliver says. With en-
rollment booming at Pratt Institute’s
film and video department, which
Oliver chairs, students and faculty
were getting cramped in their old
quarters in Clinton Hill, so Pratt freed
up space by taking the campus store
and relocating it—on the Internet.
That left a 15,000-square-foot
prefab metal building empty, waiting
to be transformed by Pratt alumnus
Jack Esterson, assisted by two
other alumni associates.
Despite Pratt’s myriad require-
ments for the facility—a recording
studio, a sound stage with an
“infinity” green screen for video
shoots, a screening room, and
more—Esterson was determined
to maintain the big-box feeling
of the 23-foot-tall column-free
interior. He accomplished that by
designing independent volumes
that either seem to float or, in some
cases, actually do in order to create
acoustical separation. The most
prominent volume, the screening
room, owes its angled shape to the
raked seating inside.
To give the volumes their own
identities, he turned to his long-ago
teacher Haresh Lalvani, now a Pratt
architetcure professor and sculptor.
Lalvani used algorithms to devise
a series of shapes that could be cut
out of the aluminum now wrapping
each volume, reflecting the activity
SEPT.15 INTERIORDESIGN.NET 115
Clockwise from top: Ottomans in the lobby are upholstered in
polyester. In the recording studio, maple baffles help manage
acoustics. The screening room seats 96. Rubber surfaces
the catwalk.
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FROM FRONT CASAMINA: CHAIRS (SOUND
STAGE). FOCAL POINT: PENDANT FIX-
TURES. IWEISS: LIGHTING GRID. TECTUM:
PANELING. NYDREE FLOORING: WOOD
PANELING (SCREENING ROOM, LOBBY).
STEELCASE: OTTOMANS (LOBBY). LEGION
LIGHTING CO.: LINEAR FIXTURES.
KI: CHAIRS (RECORDING STUDIO). KINETICS
NOISE CONTROL: BAFFLES. MODULYSS:
CARPET TILE. KNOLL TEXTILES: PANEL
FABRIC (RECORDING STUDIO, SCREENING
ROOM), SEAT FABRIC (SCREENING ROOM).
HUSSEY SEATING COMPANY: SEATS
(SCREENING ROOM). OBER: CEILING PAN-
ELS. MONDO: FLOORING (CATWALK).
THROUGHOUT DIRTY ENVIRONMENTAL
SOLUTIONS: STOREFRONT SYSTEM.
ORGANIC LIGHTING SYSTEM: COVE
LIGHTING. BENJAMIN MOORE & CO.:
PAINT. CHARCOALBLUE: ACOUSTICAL
CONSULTANT. RODNEY D. GIBBLE
CONSULTING ENGINEERS: STRUCTURAL
ENGINEER. MILGO INDUSTRIAL; BUFKIN
ENTERPRISES: METALWORK. LEGACY
BUILDERS: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.
within. Shapes for the recording
studio’s panels, for instance,
suggest sound waves. Installing
the aluminum 1.5 inches away from
the supporting walls, then lighting
the perforations from below, also
creates depth.
In contrast to the opaque alumi-
num compositions, the volumes’
upper levels and the mezzanine’s
offices and classrooms are all
fronted in transluscent glass.
A building for filmmakers should
reflect different ways of using light,
Esterson explains, adding that
there’s a reason why he chose
mostly grays for the interior: “the
color in a film school really needs
to come from the students’ films.”
Here, a flat-screen TVs display stu-
dent work in continuous rotation.
—Fred A. Bernstein
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