Overture Center for the Arts Phase One

Project of the Year: Cultural

The Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wis., is a multi-venue center for the performing and visual arts located in downtown Madison.

The project encompasses an entire city block in the heart of the town's central business district. Unique features include a modern dome atop the restored Yost's facade, which is visible from many vantage points in the downtown area.

In the rotunda, light emitting diodes are mounted below each balcony and are positioned to send a glow of interior light toward the dome. Each light can produce as many as 20,000 different colors in various sequences for specific events of seasonal presentations.

In addition, the exterior of the massive glass curtain wall of the Overture Hall lobby are reportedly the largest glass panels in any building in the world. At 19 ft. by 9 ft., the 91 individual panes weigh 2,379 lbs. each.

The Madison Symphony Orchestra organ, which has 4,040 pipes and weighs 30 tons, plus its 120-ton chamber, is said to be the heaviest moveable object in any theater in the world.

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New and Old

The project, which is a mix of new construction and renovation of existing arts facilities in the Madison Civic Center, required demolition of a number of businesses, included the Bank One Building.

Demolition had to be carefully coordinated to allow the Civic Center to remain in operation throughout the duration of construction. Crews were also required to work around a building in the middle of the block, which housed a restaurant, until condemnation and court proceedings were completed.

Throughout the entire project, construction crews were required to build to a zero lot line condition with only the sidewalk and one traffic lane closed on two sides of the job site. Staging and storage areas were also limited and continue to be so as phase two of the Overture Center project progresses.

The project collected for recycling 74 percent of building materials during demolition, donating as much deconstructed material as possible to local nonprofit groups. In total, 5,395 tons of fixtures, stone, metal concrete, carpeting and ceiling tiles were recycled or reused.

In addition, an extensive effort was made to preserve the Indiana limestone from a building that was torn down in the construction process. About 650 stones, weighing 60 tons, were numbered and saved to be used in a future downtown construction project.

Some stones were more than 6 ft. in length and weighed more than 800 lbs.

On-site recycling containers for wood, plastic, concrete, metals and blueprints ensured that more than 50 half the construction waste was kept out of local landfills.

'Green' Building

The building was chosen as one of the leading projects in the state for sustainable design by the Wisconsin Green Building Alliance.

When new materials were selected and procured, every effort was made to do so in an environmentally conscious and responsible way.

For instance, wood panels covering the ceilings and walls were selected from a forest certified for its sustainability and conservation efforts. English figured sycamore, used in paneling throughout Overture Hall, comes mostly from two large logs forested in Germany following sustainable methods.

Overture Center is the first major building project in Madison to use green concrete, a mixture that uses less energy to produce and is stronger and easier to work with than regular concrete. When both construction phases are completed, Overture Center will exceed energy code requirements for building envelope and mechanical systems design.

Overture Center was built on a fast-track scale, which required construction to begin with uncoordinated, incomplete design development drawings.

During phase one of the project's design evolution, the project management team went through 15.3 tons of recycled drawings alone.

Two major elements of the project - the installation of the 127-ton glass curtain wall system and the task of making 197 tons of pipe organ and orchestra enclosure moveable - are believed to have never been done before anywhere.

The constrained site and limited staging area meant that major pieces of material, such as the steel trusses that span Overture Hall, had to be assembled at different locations and brought in separately.

The jury said, "Overture Hall is spectacular. There were a lot of unique things they did on the project, such as the recycling of construction waste. The navigation they did in the tight site was also well done."