Data
| Location: | Takoma Park, MD |
| Facility End Use: | Performing Arts Center |
| Architect: | SmithGroup - Washington, DC |
| Contractor/Installer: | Bovis Lend Lease, Inc. - Bethesda, MD |
| Completion Date: | June 2008 |
Pattern
Scale
Method
Eclipse
Next Step
I would like to
Details
Beautiful
Montgomery College’s new Cultural Arts Center on its Takoma Park, MD campus is the area’s premier venue for the performing arts, hosting professional public performances and events sponsored by community organizations. The center is the newest addition to the Silver Spring Arts and Entertainment District, a sector of the community that the College has ceaselessly supported. The facility contains two performance spaces – a 100-seat theatre used primarily as a classroom space, and a 500-seat state-of-the-art theatre most often used by outside organizations. Inside the 500-seat theatre, Cambridge metal fabric provides a state-of-the-art building element of its own, using polished mesh panels to divide space and to create a flat tensioned ceiling system extending over 50 feet in length.
Uniquely and sophisticatedly framing the theatre’s stage and enveloping the house in elegant, clean lines, Cambridge’s LANDSCAPEINTERIORS system matches the look and mission of the Cultural Arts Center – to provide a home for the arts in a vibrant and diverse community.
Functional
On top of unparalleled aesthetics, LANDSCAPEINTERIORS systems offer supreme functionality not found in traditional alternatives. In the Cultural Arts Center’s music and dance theatre, Cambridge developed a first-of-its-kind tensioned ceiling system using architectural mesh. The expertise that Cambridge brought to the project allowed the ceiling panels to stretch over 50 feet in length and remain completely flat – a feat of engineering and craftsmanship that further proves the versatility of metal fabric and the operative know-how of Cambridge. Additionally, the patterns found in mesh ceiling panels allow them to maintain acoustic transparency, improve ventilation and elegantly reflect architectural lighting.
The new ceiling application, in combination with space-dividing vertical mesh panels, makes Cambridge’s material the star of the project, giving the theatre supreme, streamlined function and a “wow factor” operationally as well as aesthetically.
Affordable
LANDSCAPEINTERIORS applications always combine superior aesthetics with high quality performance, often eliminating the need for additional interior materials. In the Cultural Arts Center, the sheer durability and lifecycle of architectural mesh greatly reduces maintenance costs, and assures that there will be no need for replacement materials. Cambridge’s metal fabric ceiling panels were expertly engineered to fit the ceiling system, ensuring a successful and issue-free installation.
Sustainable
The Cambridge LANDSCAPEINTERIORS stainless steel metal fabric system installed inside the Cultural Arts Center, as well as its corresponding attachment hardware, is readily recyclable and was manufactured from recycled materials. Furthermore, stainless steel's durability assures that the material will maintain its pristine look for years to come. Many of Cambridge Architectural’s mesh solutions meet current LEED® requirements, specifically in the NC (New Construction) category. Cambridge Architectural is an active member of the USGBC®.