2010 EEA National Gold Award Winner – MKA’s Wyly Theatre

Gold Award – Structural Systems

Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA) – Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre

Client: Kendall/Heaton Associates

Just as actors transform for a role, the 12-story, 80,300-square-foot Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre (Wyly) morphs on cue into an endless variety of performance configurations. Part elegance, part machination, this addition to Dallas’ Arts District is a first-of-its-kind vertical theater functioning as a transformational backdrop – possible only through MKA’s structural and kinetic engineering solutions.

The program goals were ambitions. The architects envisioned a transparent “four-sided” performance zone at ground level, to blur the lines between inside and out, actor and observer. The owner’s program called for a 575-seat theater, but the site was too small. The resident theater group wanted a structure that was flexible and could be uniquely configured for each performance, but quickly, easily, and with minimal labor. And the outside theater consultant wanted top-of-the-line acoustics, sightlines and more.

In a groundbreaking solution that rethinks decades of theater design, the Wyly features an unprecedented vertical orientation, moving the traditional “back of house” to “above house” and “front of house” to “below house.” A one-of-a-kind structural system -- a “3-D composite global frame” -- creates a 27-foot high, ground-level, transparent zone with absolutely no structure beneath the building except at the perimeter. The system features just six perimeter concrete super-columns, four of which incline dramatically and asymmetrically to touch down in precisely predetermined locations. A three-story-high steel belt truss, augmented by smaller interior trusses, fills out the global frame, minimizing height while supporting a puzzle-piece assemblage of rooms so complex and interlocking that only one floor is contiguous.

Through engineering of new and adaptation of existing technologies, the theater offers the most flexible performance space ever. The stage, proscenium arch, floor platforms, balcony units, seating wagons, orchestra pit, and even walls all move – up, down, in, out, and around – to create a “building machine.”

This design solution brings new options to theater development, offering increased architectural design freedom, improved economic viability, expanded hosting options, maximized flexibility, and new levels of interaction between performer, audience, and passerby.