Meet the team behind the new Sarasota Performing Arts Center

While two members of the design team of the Sarasota Performing Arts Center were here preparing to meet the public with two workshops last week, Mark Carroll sat in the library of the Genoa, Italy, offices of Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the afternoon sun reflecting off the Mediterranean Sea and bathing the room in natural light.

Perched cliffside, the panoramic vista the terraced building headquarters provides inspiration for firm’s philosophy of designing structures that complement rather than dominate the surrounding natural environment.

Carroll is the partner-in-charge for the SPAC design project, responsible for assembling and supervising a team of architects and model makers who will, by November, create a preliminary concept design of the SPAC to be presented here to city officials, Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation leadership and the public.

“I like to call it a sense of lightness, a light touch,” Carroll told the Observer via video conference. “This is not just about the way we approach a production, it’s about the way we look at the site, the way we work with people and also the way we make architecture.”

In May, the city entered into a design agreement with RPBW in an amount of up to $36.9 million. That left only six months to produce a design concept for the SPAC.

Although global, RPBW could be described as something of a boutique firm with about 50 employees working in the Genoa office. The staff size is similar to the company’s Paris, France and New York City offices. 

Image courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop

When making its pitch in June 2023 to the task force seated to select an architecture firm to design the SPAC, Carroll and his colleagues emphasized that the firm pursues only two or three projects per year. 

“We take on very few projects if they're the right size,” Carroll said. “We need two good-sized projects (per year) to keep this office running. We have no intention of becoming larger and we know the needs of this office.”

Each project takes five to six years from the first line drawn on paper to ribbon cutting. Once construction begins, RPBW maintains a presence on site alongside its architect-of-record, in this case Sweet Sparkman of Sarasota. The Genoa office, where the SPAC design will be born, averages 10 to 13 projects in the pipeline at all times.

“I think this is a benefit to the design because we can put in the right energy at the right moments,” Carroll said. “When you're at 50, you’re flexible. When you start going over 50 it becomes a little more rigid, so I think we're able to provide a better service to the clients staying at 50. For Renzo and people like myself, we follow the projects better. It's just better all around.”

Model approach

The team at RPBW covers multiple generations from the 86-year-old Renzo Piano to interns, and each has its own approach to building design. All of it — from paper and pencil to scale model building to CAD, is incorporated into the creative process.

“We have this methodology that we bring to the table, which is working with our hands and with a computer making models and drawing sketches. And then once you do that we move back and forth between the digital world and the physical world. I'm more in the physical world. My young colleagues are more in the digital world.

“In the end, though, something that we do very different is we introduce mock-ups which are full-scale models that try to simulate pieces of the building. We simulate making a facade or special roof details, etc. We do that in our early design development phase where we can actually use that information we learned from the mock-ups and put it into our final drawings.”

The RPBW team will work alongside one assembled by Sweet Sparkman, which Carroll characterizes as a partner. As the architect of record on the ground in Sarasota, partners Todd Sweet and Jerry Sparkman will take the lead in navigating state and local building standards, permitting and more, although Carroll said the firm is involved at the drafting table from the start. 

Typically, the RPBW team will be more heavily involved in the beginning, gradually handing aspects of the project off to Sweet Sparkman as the workload shifts from Genoa to Sarasota. 

That design process can take two to three years to complete as it collaborates with the various disciplines to imagine a building that not only inspires, but also functions. From there, construction can take two-plus years, with RPBW personnel on-site until the SPAC opens to the public.

Image courtesy of Michel Denancé

Although the site is currently a sea of asphalt with a view, the shell will be designed for what The Bay Park is planned to become, which includes converting the current Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall parking lot into green space, perhaps elevated above parking.

“That’s the outside,” Carroll said. "On the inside any theater of 2,000 people or 2,500 are big challenges because of the acoustics, sight lines and the sense of belonging. It’s important on every project not to lose sight of that. Otherwise, maybe you build a great building that's not a great theater. You need to do both."

Piano man

Some of RPBW’s projects are world-renowned, including the New York Times building in New York City.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Greece, in particular, captured the attention of the architect selection task force members. Stateside, RPBW's projects include the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum, which includes a 1,000-seat theater beneath an open-air domed terrace with views toward Hollywood. and the renovation and expansion of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

Image courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop

They serve as examples of the RPBW’s benchmarks of design that complement but don’t overwhelm their surroundings, and to provide opportunities to interact with the structures without having to pay admission. 

In the case of the SPAC, as with many of its other projects, that will include shaded areas that offer vistas of an eventually completed The Bay park and sunsets across Sarasota Bay.

In addition to civic, commercial and residential buildings, RPBW’s design portfolio includes infrastructure such as the Ushibuka Bridge in Japan, and subway stations and a motor vehicle tunnel in its home city of Genoa, among others.

All of them include the touch of Renzo Piano himself. The SPAC will be no exception. 

More than a figurehead, rather than frequent travel to project sites the 86-year-old now divides his time between the Paris and Genoa offices, preferring to work with projects under design.

“He wants to travel less so he can dedicate more time as a designer,” Carroll said. “That’s what he enjoys the most, working with us, working with young people, working with the model builders, working with whoever's here. He does travel but he prefers not making 12-hour trips to California or Florida. He’s starting to think that’s a waste of his time.”