The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week David and Marina are joined by theatre designer, planner and lighting designer Michael Ferguson, Founding Principal of TheatreDNA to discuss his background and expertise; the magic of theatres; the various types of theatres; his experience working with famous architecture practices and architects; the coordination, professional relationships and processes required to design and construct theatres; and more..
Highlights & Timestamps
Introduction (00:00)
You have to get to the point as an artist where you just don't second guess yourself. You just have to trust that and say, ‘I think it should be this way.’ If it's really, truly intuition, meaning you understand it really deeply and then you're allowing your being to direct you. […] So you can articulate it after the fact. But being able to do it kind of quickly without thought, I think, is the real joy that starts to come when you really are doing something passionately for a while. (11:44)
Michael’s experience studying scenic/set design (13:54)
Process for consultants to start working with architects (24:03)
Architectural projects have a captain, they have a lead. The way we think of it is, it's kind of like a coach, right? So some days, the structural engineer is the guy who needs to drive the boat. Sometimes it's the theater consultant, so it doesn't mean that we're in charge but we do have kind of a lot of really specific info. (41:35)
About the TheatreDNA office team (30:26)
Challenges of working with an architect (41:12)
So we say all the time, for a really great performing arts space, it's like a three-legged stool. There's an architect, a theater consultant, and an acoustician. A stool can stand if one of those things is out of balance a little bit but if it's too far out of balance, the stool falls over. The same is true of any performing arts space, very true of musical spaces like a concert hall. (41:35)
Design process, tools and software (53:54)
The challenges of designing theatres (01:04:46)
Sometimes when we do a performing arts space, if you try to do a space that does really great theater and really great music and really great film (showing cinema), those things are hard to do it all at the same time because they're completely, directly in contrast with each other acoustically. They're in contrast with each other physically sometimes. […] If you really boil it down, the building is a vessel so much like a museum where you think of it in the beginning as just a neutral place but then we realize now these amazing facilities, it's not a neutral space. It's a dynamic space that creates this emotion and evokes these things while holding these works of art. So a theater's a little bit the same way. (01:06:46)
The different types of theatres (01:09:26)
The evolution of theatres (01:13:16)
Designing and maintaining performance centers made to last over 100 years (01:21:55)
