print this article | 
e-mail this article | 
comment Case Study:
The Idea Center at Playhouse Square
Sustainability in Two Acts: Two nonprofits join to create an interactive center for the arts, technology, and ideas.
The environmental story of the idea center at Playhouse Square in Cleveland begins with a deliberate and uncommon act of consolidation between two non-profit groups. Ideastream, a new multimedia public-service company, and Playhouse Square Foundation, a provider of arts education programs, share space in a historic building in the center of the city’s business district. The suite provides office space, classrooms, production studios, and performance venues, including a shared 300-seat theater and public areas centered on an historic ornamental staircase and historic mezzanine. “The fundamental act of two organizations combining a 150,000-square-foot program and reducing it to 90,000 square feet by sharing space is a dramatic act of conservation,” states Paul Westlake, principal at Westlake Reed Leskosky, the design firm responsible for the master planning and Idea Center suite. “We achieved an important model of efficiency for nonprofits by developing a very high-use building and spreading our operational and administrative costs across two parties.”
The Idea Center at Playhouse Square
Based on what you have seen and read about this project, how would you grade it? Use the stars below to indicate your assessment, five stars being the highest rating.
KEY PARAMETERS
Cleveland, Ohio
GROSS SQUARE FOOTAGE: 246,000 ft2 (22,854 m2)
COST: $17 million
COMPLETED: September 2005
PROGRAM: Broadcast and performance space, offices
TEAM
Owner Partner: WVIZ/PBS, 90.3 WCPN ideastreamsm, and the Playhouse Square Foundation
MASTER PLANNER: (Playhouse Square District), Feasibility Analyst, and
PROGRAMMER: Westlake Reed Leskosky
ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS (Idea Center Building Restoration): URS
ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS (Idea Center Tenant Suite, Sustainable Design
Services): Westlake Reed Leskosky
CONSTRUCTION MANAGER: Turner Construction
A/V AND THEATRICAL CONSULTANT: The Systems Group
SOURCES
METAL/GLASS CURTAINWALL: KAWNEER, South Shore Metal Cladding
SKYLIGHTS: SuperSky Products
INTERIOR WALLS: USG Gypsum Board
CEILINGS: Armstrong, Tectum
CARPET: Messina Floor Covering, Inc., C & A, Interface Flooring Systems
LIGHTING: Lithonia, Zumtobel/Staff, Focal Point, Kenall, Neo-ray, Contech, Appleton, LSI, Lightolier
GREENGUARD CERTIFIED FURNISHINGS: Haworth, Herman Miller, Harter, Knoll
Located on a major gateway into the city, the collaboration is apparent even as one approaches the Euclid Avenue entrance to the building. With continuous views of the flanking program spaces, the dance studio and the broadcast studio are on display to the sidewalk to engage the street life. Although it would have been easier to put the studio in a more conventional space deep into the building, the storefront display fulfills an important aspect of the joint venture’s mission to promote retail in a revitalized downtown. “The facility was conceived as a fluid container, highly interactive and visually open—an armature for media that engages the public and community,” describes Westlake Reed Leskosky principal Ron Reed.
Kit Jensen, the Chief Operating Officer of ideastream, first brought environmentally responsible concepts to the table. “I wanted to see if a broadcast facility with heavy electricity usage could be green,” she says. Jensen found a willing partner in Playhouse Square Foundation’s Tom Einhouse, the Idea Center’s project manager, who wanted “to preserve the stored energy in an existing facility.” Together they hired Westlake Reed Leskosky as design lead architects and engineers for the Idea Center suite. The firm provided sustainable design services and was instrumental in achieving LEED-CI Silver certification.
Monica Green, Westlake Reed Leskosky, directed the effort by focusing on the guiding principles, not by chasing LEED points. “We were dedicated to larger issues. This wasn’t a LEED-driven process…but rather the cumulative effect of all the small decisions, the attention to the myriad of little measures that makes this project a success.” For example, the lighting design needed to address the varied needs of live theatrical performance, studio broadcasting, teleconferencing, and general office requirements, while meeting energy power reduction thresholds. This was accomplished through multiple strategies that combined many different lighting and control technologies, including the optimal use of daylight and reflective surfaces. Demand-controlled ventilation, increased wall insulation, and window replacement reduce the energy associated with heating and cooling an older building. Also, tenants are responsible for the utilities costs, encouraging energy usage consciousness.
Kit Jensen emphasizes the high value of stewardship. “Sustainability at Idea Center goes beyond the credits or points. We achieved something better for the neighborhood—a cool building with less ozone depletion, for example. We thought about it in micro-issues, yet each decision impacted the larger community enormously.”
The codeveloped project yielded expected and unanticipated results. A 1912 building has been transformed into a radically new environment and technology-based hub attracting tenants from Cleveland’s design, high-tech and media communities. Combining resources and reducing square footage as well as building and operating costs captured savings in excess of $7 million. The building serves as a public educational tool and an urban exhibition of the owner’s programs and commitment to sustainability.
del.icio.usThis article appeared in the July 2007 print issue of GreenSource Magazine
