The New York Times has a new 52-story home in midtown Manhattan, and in the heart of this new home, lobby level, is a new state-of-the-art cultural center and performance space, TheTimesCenter.

Both The New York Times building and TheTimesCenter were designed by architect Renzo Piano, a winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1998, in collaboration with FXFOWLE Architects. The 378-seat auditorium is adjacent to an outdoor garden, located in an enclosed courtyard visible from behind a glass stage wall that can act a as a backdrop to a presentation or performance. The stage platform is approximately 65' wide and 15' deep; the first three rows of seats can be removed and filled in with platforms to increase the stage depth to 25'. Theater planning and design consultants for the space were Fisher Dachs Associates (FDA, NY, NY).

JaffeHolden, the acoustical consultant for the auditorium, worked collaboratively over an extended period with the architect, the theater consultant, and the building owners to optimize the acoustic performance of the space for what eventually became multiple uses, ranging from simple lecture presentations to musical and theatrical performances.

The New York Times Building

The transparent glass tower, 52 stories high and 1,046 feet from the street to the tip of the mast, overlooks the Times Square Redevelopment area on Eighth Avenue between Fortieth and Forty-First Streets.

Designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in association with FXFOWLE Architects, and with Gensler providing interior design, the building has become known for an innovative feature where thousands of small ceramic tubes draped horizontally in front of the low-emissivity glass curtain wall reduce the building's heat load. The building has several other environmentally significant sustainable features, including a work environment that maximizes natural light, maintaining a connection to the outside. Mechanized shades work in concert with more than 20,000 automated, dimmable fluorescent fixtures to maintain needed light levels while saving energy.

The New York Times Company owns 828,000 square feet on the second through the 28th floors of the 1.54-million square foot structure. The building unites most of the 2,500 Manhattan-based employees of the Times Company, which had been housed in several locations in New York City.

JH principal, Russell Cooper, explains the conceptual evolution behind the space: "At first, going well back into the planning stages, the owners envisioned the auditorium being used primarily as a lecture hall. Renzo [Piano] designed a box-shaped space using planar wood surfaces. We noted that, other than for lectures and multi-media presentations, the sound of the hall—which had very little diffusion—could be quite harsh. For chamber ensemble performances, we suggested alterations that would get the reverb time up a bit, but with very low volume.

"Even though the owners were fairly certain at the time that they would be using the space primarily for lectures and amplified presentations, they were not ready to abandon entirely the possibility of its use for musical performance. We researched many options for adjustable acoustics, including significant alteration of the hardwood interior, or the use of transparent screening on the walls hiding a moving absorptive material behind it. Renzo suggested the compromise use of perforated wood, but perforated wood is not transparent enough for sound to reach the sound absorbent material behind.

"The options began to proliferate, each with their own complexities and attendant costs. Finally, the owners determined that the space would be a lecture hall. So we concentrated on solutions that would tone down the hall for speech, creating a space with a reflective acoustic environment at the speaker's position, and an absorptive acoustic environment at the rear—typical for a lecture hall.

"Fast-forward two years later... Knowing that they had a small jewel on their hands, with a very high profile and located in Times Square [on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets], the owners hired a programmer to explore the potential uses for the space. The programmer came up with a comprehensive list with a variety of presentations, including not only the original planned uses for lectures and multi-media, but also unamplified musical performances, such as chamber music.

"We knew that in order to make the space work equally well for all of the different program needs, we would need an electronic architecture solution. Electronic architecture would provide the full range of variability needed to take the relatively dry natural signature of the room and smoothly fill in the diffuse energy field needed for chamber music."

An Acoustic for ERES
Although the space as designed would work extremely well for its original lecture purpose, the addition of electronic architecture meant that the room could be tailored subtly for every kind of performance, including lectures. "Once we knew we were going to add an ERES [Electronic Reflected Energy System]," says Cooper, "we also knew we needed to have the sound absorbing areas more evenly distributed around the room. Although the ERES could work with the room as designed, balancing the absorption around the room would provide a more neutral palette for the ERES application." So the room finishes had to change, although much less dramatically than would have been needed to create a fully musical room within the desired architectural look.

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