Bellevue Theatre Project wins 2015 PCI Award (with video)

Spokane, Wash. — The Prestressed/Precast Concrete Institute (PCI) selected a major Oldcastle Precast-Spokane project as a winner in the 2015 PCI Design Awards Program in the Best Theatre category. The winning project was the state-of-the-art Bellevue Youth Theatre, located near the existing Crossroads Community Center in Bellevue, Wash. This project is a new 12,000-square-foot theatre built into the side of a hill where children can play on top.

The precast concrete and cast-in-place theatre facility, designed by Becker Architects and constructed by Pease Construction includes a living roof comprised of lawn, soil, irrigation and a waterproofing system, which are all placed on top of a structural precast concrete roofing system.

“One of the main aesthetic design goals was to have an exposed concrete roof and wall structural system because it allows the building to appear as if it is extruded out of the ground,” said Robert George Becker, principal and owner of Becker Architects in Bellevue.

One of the challenges was how to construct a waterproof roof that could handle the weight of landscaping and associated traffic while contributing to effective sound attenuation and insulation within the building. This along with wanting to showcase the theatre from the front and obscure it from the back contributed to the final design requiring a precast concrete roofing system.

Oldcastle Precast-Spokane provided the prestressed/precast elements for the theatre roof system. The roof system contains curved precast concrete beams, hollow core planks, and a precast concrete exhaust dome hub that were cast offsite then lifted into place over the span of a couple of weeks.

“That is just a fraction of the time a cast-in-place system would have required,” Becker says.

“An innovator in precast concrete materials and technology, Oldcastle Precast is honored to be a part of the team to receive this PCI award,” said Chuck Prussack, Sales Manager for Oldcastle Precast. “To have our custom precast concrete beams, hub and hollow core plank form the domed roof structure was very exciting. This unique project demonstrates that innovative use of prestressed/precast concrete elements can be a practical, economically viable method to building environmentally friendly structures.”

Read more about the project at www.pci.org/Project_Resources/Project_Profiles/Profile_Pages/Bellevue_Youth_Theatre.