Indian Springs High School Performing Arts Center

San Bernardino, California

Firm

John Sergio Fisher & Associates, Inc.

Client

San Bernardino City Unified School District

Area

19,452 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$13,600,000

Completion Date

08/2018

John Sergio Fisher & Associates, Inc. served as architect, theater consultant and acoustician for this new high school performing arts center. The center is a 514-seat multifunctional facility, with full support spaces and an art gallery in the lobby lighted by a tall north-facing curtain wall. A black box theater will be added in the future.
The state-of-the-art proscenium theater (not an auditorium) has a fly tower with gridiron and rigging for 25 line sets, including two for an orchestra shell. The proscenium opening can be adjusted in width from 40 feet for plays to 60 feet for orchestra, dance and musicals. There is an orchestra pit with a lift that can raise for 29 additional seats and can raise higher to create a stage thrust.
The front-of-house stage lighting positions are on a tension grid for lighting position flexibility and positioning on a catwalk. Tracked draperies at the rear of the tension grid and catwalk plus the side galleries provide adjustable acoustics ranging from one-second reverberation time for drama and for sound-reinforced musicals to 1.7 seconds for orchestra. Convex side wall reflectors prevent overlapping sound waves.
Thick CMU bearing walls support the steel trusses and beams and provide sound insulation from street traffic as well as thermal lag.