Stanford BING Concert Hall

Not usually much to post about work but a recent site visit last week did particularly impress me, so I figured I'd share it with ya...

One of the projects I'm working on is the new Stanford BING Concert Hall. It's a pretty artsy building that's going up on campus and I'm working on some of the engineering for the audience walls. The audience walls are... well they're audience walls. They're the funky walls that separate the different levels of seating and generally no one even notices them. That is, UNTIL now! These things are pretty cool looking...

Wood Panel Audience Wall

Well I thought they look snazzy. If you look closely you can see the texture of the wall. It's built one piece at a time, which gets stacked up along the wall height. You can see the layers better here...

And what's holding those beautiful panels up? The metal studs of course! That's the grey support behind the wood in the picture above. And the material I engineer all day every day. It's an exciting and dangerous lifestyle, but I choose to live it.  One more moment of geeking out for me... Here's a shot behind the wall before it gets covered...

Behind the scenes

Amazed yet? OK probably not really. Probably not at all, but don't worry I took more pictures of the whole place under construction. 

The Pit

 Down there is the pit where the orchestra will play and the entire theater has 360 degree seating. Not a bad seat in the house!

This next shot is another piece I worked on. It's going to be a giant acoustic "sail" and yours truly got to work on the support design :-)

Sail A

Not a bad little site visit if I do say so myself :) BONUS is that it was inside and cool on one of the hottest days of the year :) I'm fully expecting season tickets once the theater is open so let me know if you'd like to come. OK totally kidding on that one. But if anyone DOES get tickets, I'd be happy to tag along!!!