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February 5, 2024
Magnusson Klemencic Associates
Project: Perelman Performing Arts Center
Client: PAC NYC/Davis Brody Bond
The Perelman Performing Arts Center (or PAC NYC) at the World Trade Center site in New York City is a remarkable feat of engineering and design. While its exterior appears simple and elegant, the building houses an immensely complex structural system that enables it to transform into almost limitless configurations. One of the key challenges was the site itself, which straddled a below-grade maze of operating infrastructure, including subway lines and delivery docks.
“The challenges PAC NYC’s site, program, and design imposed on its structure were extraordinary and demanded an equally extraordinary structural engineer,” said Joshua Rasmus, founding partner of REX, the project’s architecture firm. “The building’s construction had to thread through four subterranean levels of operating infrastructure, including P.A.T.H. train tracks, MTA subway lines, delivery truck circulation and loading docks, and massive air shafts serving below-grade program and vehicular traffic. It had to respond to the existing foundations of a previous design by another architect that provided minimal bearing capacity under the new design’s location. And it had to accommodate stringent blast and acoustic isolation requirements, both of which could not rely on mass due to the limited bearing capacity. I often say, ‘If the site were not the absolute right place to build PAC NYC, it would be the absolute wrong place to build a performing arts center.’”
Despite these challenges, PAC NYC successfully repurposed an existing foundation originally designed for a different-sized building through innovative load-path mapping to match the primary structure to the existing foundations, using only seven super columns some as big as 5 feet wide and weighing as much as 2,400 pounds per foot as support points for its 6,300-ton primary steel structure.
Magnusson Klemencic Associates used an “upside-down engineering” approach, designing the structure from the “bottom-up” to utilize the existing foundation. The three theaters inside the building “float” independently, providing acoustical isolation from each other and the surrounding infrastructure. This flexibility allows PAC NYC to offer 11 different theater volumes and over 60 configurations, ranging from intimate black-box venues to large auditoriums.
The project also addressed rigorous anti-terrorism blast resistance requirements without compromising architectural beauty. In fact, it was described by the New York Times as “the most glamorous civic building to land in New York in years.” The building’s innovative structural solutions, kinetic auditoria, and blast resistance measures set a new benchmark for transformable, flexible performance spaces. PAC NYC’s successful completion contributes to the revitalization of the 9/11 memorial site, bringing celebration and creativity back to the neighborhood.
“With its opening night performance on Sept. 14, 2023, NYC welcomed a fitting complement to the neighboring WTC Memorial Plaza, a beacon of hope, wonder, and celebration,” said David K. Williams, partner at Davis Brody Bond. “If anyone deserves this award, it is MKA for their expertise in creating a highly creative and unique structural solution that enabled this iconic project to be realized.”
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