Fayetteville Festival Park Performance Pavilion in North Carolina by Clark Nexsen

Article source: Clark Nexsen

The Performance Pavilion is the major architectural element in the overall plan of the new Festival Park in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It is comprised of a raised, covered stage, and back-of-house functions in a simple, rectangular extrusion. It is intended that, on a daily basis, the pavilion appears more like a park folly than an empty stage. To this end, the back-of-house functions slide to one side, allowing an open view through to the backdrop of existing trees. Operable panels, which can be retracted from behind a scrim wall, create a backdrop and crossover when performances are taking place.

Image Courtesy JWest Productions

• Architects: Clark Nexsen (formerly Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee)
• Project: Fayetteville Festival Park Performance Pavilion
• Location: Fayetteville, North Carolina
• Associate Architect: SFL+a Architects
• Client: City of Fayetteville
• Project Team: Jeffrey Lee, David Francis, Jennifer Olson
• Photographs: JWest Productions

Image Courtesy JWest Productions

In spite of limited venues, the performing arts are alive in Fayetteville, NC. A previous Needs Assessment indicated substantial demand for an outdoor, multi-use performance space and the Performance Pavilion provides such a space. The site of the park is close to the downtown area, on land owned by the City of Fayetteville. Because of a coal de-gasification operation located on the site in the 1940s, the site was classified as a “brown field” and its decontamination, in 2003, was phase one of this project.

Image Courtesy JWest Productions

In addition to the challenges of building on a decontaminated site, other physical features influenced the design. The triangular site is bounded by a major roadway, an active rail line, and a two-lane city street. The site contains several specimen cypress trees and is bisected by a creek that is subject to occasional flooding. The 100-year flood level of the creek established the floor elevation of the pavilion, which was placed at the northwest corner of the site to embrace an existing cypress tree and claim a central location on the largest lawn. The combination of the wooden scrim wall extending stage left and the planter and row of trees extending stage right stretches the presence of the pavilion across the end of the site, so that the building does not seem insignificant within the larger context of the open park.

Image Courtesy JWest Productions

The stage canopy presented a structural challenge. To maintain sightlines, columns could not be used. The canopy is supported by a system of masts and steel tensioned cables. The cables attach to each end of the bent beam roof and terminate at steel brackets embedded in large concrete footings. Uplift was resisted by adding dead weight, in the form of solid steel plates at the front edge of the canopy. Each miscellaneous plate and steel connection was carefully studied for both structural integrity and aesthetic consistency.

Image Courtesy JWest Productions

The remaining portion of the Performance Pavilion is a layered composition of unpretentious materials including cmu, wood, concrete, cement board, and exposed structural steel. The stage house is a simple, steel stud framed volume. The front façade is clad in ground-face CMU, set in a stack bond, and the remaining facades are cement board panels painted bright yellow. The screen wall is cedar siding over a combination steel and wood frame. Operable \”curtain\” panels are painted cement board over steel frames.

Image Courtesy JWest Productions

Image Courtesy JWest Productions

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Tags: Fayetteville, North Carolina

Categories: Pavilion, Performing Arts Center

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