Why Haven’t We Ever Done This?

I spent the weekend in the Seattle area participating as a lead partner in the very first stages of a pilot program where emerging arts leaders provide input on the construction of Performing Arts Center-Eastside (PACE) in Bellevue, WA. I had noted my participation in an earlier entry if you would like a little more information.

I intend to spend the next few entries reflecting on the experience. However, since everyone hopes this program can be replicated for future construction, I am going to summarize the major activities in today’s entry. Anyone considering using the process during their own construction or major renovation project will have an easy reference to the basic outline.

I want to acknowledge and give a lot of credit for the creation of the program to PACE Associate Director, Dana Kernich. She brought the whole concept to Executive Director, John Haynes and then did a lot of the organizational work to make it happen. When I was advocating more professional development opportunities for the alumni of APAP’s Emerging Leadership Institute, this program barely hovered at the edge of my mind as something that might be possible.

Obviously, I also need to acknowledge John Haynes for embracing the idea and committing resources to it. It was not a cheap undertaking. PACE flew 10 of us out, housed us and fed us (and it wasn’t at Sizzler though we would have been happy for it). Haynes told me he still saw it as extremely economical. He could have spent the same amount on a week long consultant visit but he was getting 10 consultants committing themselves to providing feedback for about 3 more years.

Haynes also observed that while consultants and architects are absolutely invaluable to the construction of facilities, once the job is done they move on to the next job and aren’t involved in the experience of inhabiting and working in the space the way arts professionals like ourselves are. In this respect was expense worthwhile. (Lest anyone think they will be ignored, there have been and will continue to be discussions with artists who have experienced performing in many spaces.)

The Process

We started out with a tour of the region so that we could get a sense of the physical environment in which the PAC would operate. Traffic isn’t getting any better in the region especially with the likes of Microsoft and Google expanding their physical presence. When we returned from our tour, John Haynes gave us a briefing on the history, audience demographics, vision and financial issues for the organization.

After that we participated in a panel discussion on the Regional Arts Ecology attended by the Executive Directors of the Bellevue Philharmonic, Kirkland Performing Arts Center, Seattle Theatre Group and 4Culture. This was a very interesting session to me on a number of levels. First, I appreciated the thorough job PACE was doing in educating us. But also, while 4Culture is a funding organization and Bellevue Philharmonic will find a place to perform in PACE, the other two could easily find themselves competing with PACE for audiences and artists. They might all end up competing for funding. Their observations and answers were great in terms of providing outside parties’ view of the environment in which PACE would operate.

That evening we had dinner with the facility architects, Pfeiffer Partners. This was more of an informal meeting than any type of presentation.

The next morning began our “work day” where we started to provide feedback in the context of what we had learned. It had already been clear to me how important PACE viewed our participation given all the people they arranged for us to meet including having the architects come up from Los Angeles. But what really impressed upon me just how innovative and important this pilot program might be was the fact Alan Brown of Wolf Brown was there. Apparently John Haynes had mentioned the project to him and he asked if he could be present and observe.

The day started out with Mr. Brown discussing Cultural Participation. This was derived from the research he had done for the Major University Presenters on Assessing the Intrinsic Impact of Live Performance. I had gotten the audio from a session he and the other researchers had conducted at the APAP convention but I was still jotting down lots of notes. Perhaps more importantly, some of PACE’s board members were present and doing the same. Again, I will expound on this in later entries.

Then the architects conducted a design charrette discussing their philosophy for the facility as well as noting the way they had dealt with challenges and benefits of the physical location. One of the most helpful things in the discussion was the models they brought. One allowed us to remove each floor piece by piece and another was large enough to stick our heads into to get a sense of things.

At this point, everyone except the 10 lead partners left the room and we engaged in a brainstorming session on the design. Haynes asked us to limit ourselves to three areas since there were so many directions we could go- Assess how the building functioned as a workplace, how it facilitated the patron experience and how the “machine” of the building worked (i.e. can a dumpster be rolled outside and not have to go through the lobby)

When the allotted time expired we presented our thoughts to the architects, members of the building committee, Dana and John. As you might imagine a great deal of discussion followed. However, our observations appeared to be valuable to all involved since one of the architects asked why no one had ever done this sort of thing before. (Thus the title of this entry.)

After things wrapped up we went out for dinner with Alan Brown and all flew out the next morning. As I noted in my earlier entry on the project, this weekend was just the first stride in a three year journey. It merely provided the context for conversations and exchanges of information channeled through a blog entries and emails over the next three years. My intent is to reflect upon the experience this week and across the next few years. Even with the strictures of the confidentiality agreement, there are enough general observations about the process I can make to be valuable to others.