site + program




SITE > CITYWIDE ACCESS


The site is a half-mile west of The Strip, bordered to the east by the back-sides of casinos and malls and to the west by I-15 and old industrial buildings, the back-side of the city.


By positioning the project in this residual space between various images and communities of Las Vegas, it becomes a zone of access both for the greater city and for The Strip.  It also allows the project to be positioned in the “in-between” zone of an unresolved but potentially urban condition.


This could be considered one of many interventions, one moment in an archipelago of new spaces for Las Vegas that work together to create new community space.  This location in particular offers connectivity to a wide range of resources in the city, both physically and socially, due to its “centrality.”  The threshold between visitor destination and residential city in particular provides fertile ground for intensifying relationships in a tectonic setting.


PROGRAM > REVEALING PROCESS


The program for the site overall is a civic space for multiple user groups.  Specifically, this will be accomplished through the intersection of two typologies: 

casino and community dance center.


CASINO

Given that this is an exceptional and iconic type of bracketed space in Las Vegas, the casino border will be the starting ground for a unique tectonic and temporal strategy of place-making.


DANCE CENTER

A community dance center will be the main design focus, as this will be the “border program.”  Working with the new Smith Center, soon to be the home of the Nevada Ballet and Philharmonic, a more community-oriented center can provide an ancillary space for rehearsal and performance but moreover for the involvement of community activities with more formalized practices.  In terms of arts education, the center will provide a full range of body-learning activities, including step dance, youth dance, parkour, yoga, and so forth, in addition to more typical offerings.  The main purpose of the design will be to foreground process and activity in as many ways as possible to add a new experience to that of public Las Vegas.

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