Project Overview
In bustling Times Square, New York, NY, cinema history has been preserved and transformed as an inviting retail sports store. Dark became light as designers navigated stringent landmark requirements, turning restriction into opportunity.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
David Cyr, LC, MIES, IALD
Suzie Lee, IES, Associate IALD
Project Brief
New life is breathed into this historic-landmarked theatre interior in the heart of Times Square, transformed from a dimly lit movie palace to a vibrant sports retail experience.
The fan experience begins as shoppers enter a stadium tunnel, are led through a hall where namesake sports memorabilia fill displays where posters once announced coming attractions, and emerge onto center field. While AstroTurf and goalposts have replaced seating for moviegoers, spectators still line tiered stands to catch the big show on a sports Jumbotron above a stage once home to the silver screen.
Project Innovation/Need
The innovation of this project lies in the radical repurposing of an historic-landmarked classic moviehouse as a bright, new retail store environment. While the needs of each initially seem antithetical, the design team capitalized on and embellished the similarities. Both space types focus on drawing people in with the promise of excitement within. Transitional spaces, used in a theatre to acclimate guests to the low light levels needed for film projection, here were used to build anticipation for a big reveal at the sales floor. Careful implementation of a central design concept flowed through decisions in all trades in integrating necessary hardware and services with minimal impact on historic fabric.
Design Challenge
Challenged by landmark restrictions on modifying or attaching to the interior envelope, the design team was inspired to develop a sports field concept. Luminaires were mounted on custom freestanding pylons and trusses that echo stadium lighting structures, leaving the French-inspired decorated surfaces and historic fabric untouched. This created armatures to mount lighting, speakers, exit signs, and emergency lighting whose appearance grounded and reinforced the stadium concept. The original sloping floor was used in consort with a central raised area to create a soccer field as sales floor, complete with tiered "stadium" seating facing a Jumbotron to reflect the fan experience.
A tight budget and project timeline required creative solutions to employ standard products and existing features to achieve the design vision.
Sustainability
The sustainability aspect of this project was the adaptive reuse of an historic space for a very different purpose. The embodied energy and value of the existing architectural environment was preserved along with its history and beauty to serve a dramatically new function.
All original architectural materials and surfaces dating from 1925 were refurbished and maintained, including original chandeliers and integrated luminaires that were restored and fitted with LED sources. Original painted murals were restored and remain features of the space; only one mural, damaged by time, was carefully preserved and covered non-invasively with a new painting celebrating a soccer legend, linking new with old.
Though largely exempt from meeting lighting power density requirements due to registered historical landmark status, the efficient design easily outperforms contemporary code allowances.
Lighting Design
This award celebrates creative and innovative lighting design or effects in indoor or outdoor spaces.
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