“The Alice” at Goodman Theatre

Students and visitors enter the space through a portal where red oak stair treads, blackened steel plates, and a millwork-clad wheelchair lift bridge the five-foot difference in floor elevation between the existing theatre lobby and the new space.

A rich material palette honors the named donor, Alice, who was an avid trail runner and nature enthusiast, as well as recalling Goodman Theatre’s founding donor, William Owen Goodman, an American lumber industrialist. Once users have passed through the entry threshold, white oak end-grain flooring unfolds underfoot as a durable surface and direct reminder of cut logs—a connection between theater, industry, and running through the forest as Alice once did.

A two-sided wood feature wall, composed of clean striped rift-cut red oak and backed with grey acoustical fabric, dissipates and absorbs sound within STEM learning labs and reception spaces. Varying in width and depth, the vertical wood slats evoke a Venetian contour curtain folding open to reveal a stage. This ‘acoustical curtain’ weaves through the Center, defining the boundary between public and learning spaces while parting at key moments to frame classroom entrance.

The facility is acoustically isolated from the building structure with resilient pads and acoustical hangers that reduce noise transmission with tenant spaces above and below. Ceiling planes throughout are a mix of absorptive and reflective; an organic arrangement of lighting and mechanical diffusers reinforce the concept of being outdoors under a starry sky. Concrete columns, left exposed, pierce through ceilings and, with lighting designed to highlight a space beyond, accentuate the height of the room.