Designer Forum: Flooring serves an important supporting role in a performance hall’s design – Jan 2024

By Ariane Laxo

Capital One Hall is the heart of Capital One Center, a new 24.5-acre mixed-use urban redevelopment of Capital One’s corporate headquarters just outside Washington, D.C. The master plan had two overarching goals: to attract and retain the nation’s top talent for Capital One Financial and to provide much-needed cultural amenities and outdoor space for the growing D.C. and northern Virginia population.

The performance hall aims to be a world-class venue-of-choice, hosting comedy, symphony, dance and Broadway performances, and this goal drove design decisions, from making the experience memorable for patrons with rich materials like marble, wood, stone and brass to making back-of-house operations easy on staff and visiting crews. The design hit the mark-HGA, the architecture firm responsible for the project, was crowned the winner in IIDA’s 2023 Interior Design Competition in the entertainment category for its flexible new corporate and performing arts center design.

SETTING THE STAGE
The building’s folded white marble façade lifts above the street, catching light and shadow like the pleats of a dress. Thin vertical windows step upward toward the rooftop park, infusing the interior public spaces with natural light and views. HGA sought to create a memorable experience for all visitors, from the street-level entry vestibule to the main foyer on the second level and farther upward, through a cascade of gallery spaces that spiral around the performance hall toward the public rooftop park 100 feet above street level.

The building’s arrangement plays on both the literal and figurative connectivity it aims to bring the community as an event venue, public amenity and gathering space. The flexible new corporate and performing arts center hosts a range of large and small events: community-based programs, Broadway shows, concerts, conferences.

The interior user experience is one of contraction and expansion, with low ceilings and darker finishes leading to grand, light-filled areas. Purposeful use of interior materials identifies unique spaces-rich millwork paneling surrounds the performance hall; granite and terrazzo perimeter staircases lead from one indoor terrace to the next. The foyer’s serrated 57’ ceiling echoes the building façade and allows space for tree roots from the rooftop garden above.

The flooring plays a grounding role, working like a bassline in a composition that allows lighter materials above to draw the eye with their texture, color and reflection of light, like the melody of a violin. Yet, just like a well-crafted bassline, upon closer inspection, the flooring has a richness, providing texture and quality materiality that is lovely all on its own.

Since the flooring is such a significant volume, especially in large spaces like Capital One Hall’s foyer, it is often one of the first materials HGA specifies. On this project, however, they began with the concept of the white Carrera marble exterior cladding and built an overall palette with the reflective brass, the muted textural gray plaster seen in the entry-level lobby and the warm wood that plays a significant role both inside the performance hall and in the public spaces. The flooring plays a supporting role, but one that is just as important, anchoring both the lofty, bright spaces and the darker, human-scaled spaces.

THE SELECTIONS
Stone plays a significant role in this project, offering a sense of prestigiousness, durability and permanence appropriate for this performance venue, which aims to become an integral part of the D.C. metro area’s cultural fabric. The building’s folded façade features white Carrera marble. Virginia Mist granite, extracted from a mine only 70 miles from the project site, is introduced as exterior pavers at the entry portal, topped with a brass frame and modern marquee. The granite extends into the entry lobby, terminating at a sculptural stair made with monolithic blocks of Calacatta Sponda marble. Each block weighs hundreds of pounds, yet the stair achieves a delicate relationship with the brass railing. The granite continues in the foyer, where it eventually meets another sculptural stair to the balcony levels, this one made of precast terrazzo slabs. These sculptural stairs become objects in the space, each playing their part in ushering the audience further inside.

In designing a cultural institution that will host performances for the next 50 to 100 years, long-lasting flooring materials were paramount. The team also sought materials that would be elegant yet versatile, appropriate for patrons attending a symphony in gowns and tuxedos, as well as parents bringing their children for a ballet performance at the pinnacle of a summer ballet camp. With that aim in mind, they pursued customized flooring that would feel timeless and unique to the space.

The flooring also helped the project achieve an incredible feat: inserting a 1,600-seat performance hall with acoustic isolation in between a loading dock below and the biergarten and rooftop park above-complete with bocce ball courts and an amphitheater that hosts live music and movie nights. The hall was designed as a ‘box-in-box’ structure, resulting in the audience chamber and stagehouse being completely separated from adjacent framing via transfer beams and isolation pads. HGA’s acoustician, Stages Consultants, recommended flooring strategies for improved acoustics that included wood flooring on pads and bumpers in the 225-seat black box theater and specifying carpeting on the foyer balconies and in the performance hall aisles to soften footfall and reduce sound reverberation.

The team aimed for flooring materials that were appropriate for the function of each space. The biergarten on the roof and the adjacent restrooms have highly durable safety and epoxy flooring, respectively. Dressing rooms and back-of-house corridors use Forbo MCT, providing front-of-house elegance while aligning with back-of-house function. In the performance hall, A Different Angle carpet from Mohawk’s Karastan adorns the audience chamber’s aisleways and concrete with integral color resides under the seats. The balconies feature Fan Fold and Mountain Fold carpet tile from Mannington Commercial’s Origami collection. Onstage, a blended polymer Polyonyx+ floor promises to be a supporting part of productions for years to come, while solid white oak flooring adds ambiance in the black box theater.

THE RECEPTION
Capital One Hall is a modern classic, offering the Washington, D.C. metro area a new performance venue that will play a featured role in the memories of residents and visitors for decades to come. This is a community amenity in an area previously known for shopping and parking lots, offering affordable rentals for community organizations in addition to hosting traveling Broadway shows and top-bill performers.

The greatest measure of success is that performers and visitors love the space. Comedians have extended their tours and performers have made the venue a repeat stop. Parents bring their kids for their first classical performances, and business organizations host conferences with breakout sessions throughout the building, including on the stage. The project’s versatility has been put to the test, with hundreds of diverse events and performances hosted already.

This flexibility is possible due to a collaborative interdisciplinary project team, a knowledgeable and proactive owner and operator, and a design that knows when to shine as a leading actor and when to step back into the chorus, allowing other performers to take center stage. But throughout, the flooring serves a grounding role, the walking bassline in a rich composition.

Copyright 2024 Floor Focus 

Related Topics:Mannington Mills, Mohawk Industries, Karastan