Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow

The Doris Duke Theatre is one of three performance venues at Jacob’s Pillow, a contemporary dance school and performance center located in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Set within a forest clearing, the theatre structure is composed of what the architects call a ‘magic wooden box’ surrounded by a ground-level, organically-shaped veranda. The 19,300-square-foot, Type V-B building is framed using glulam columns and girders with CLT roof panels and load-bearing walls.

The multi-use theatre is designed to adapt to a wide variety of performance needs, with a double-height, 230-seat auditorium, multi-purpose lobbies, back-of-house spaces, and more. The auditorium features a robust theatrical infrastructure, including a catwalk that allows crews to quickly and efficiently switch sets between performances, and advanced technological capabilities that allow them to bring artificial intelligence, robotics, livestream, and other technologies into live performances. To temper the visual starkness of this technology, designers used wood’s materiality to provide warmth and beauty. Large window openings allow natural light to stream in, and wood wall paneling helps preserve sound quality.

To maximize the visibility of timber surfaces, architects placed a service plenum along one wall of the auditorium to house the theatre’s MEP infrastructure, allowing service distribution at each bay while reducing the need for beam penetrations. Mechanical ductwork was tucked under dropped ceilings in back-of-house areas to minimize exposed infrastructure in the theatre, lobbies, and exhibition spaces. Since structural CLT walls also serve as the main interior finished walls, designers added acoustic wall panels to absorb sound and conceal the perimeter movement gap required for dance floor deflections. Even the mass timber roof assembly is designed to limit rain noise in the auditorium.