In Cincinnati, Ohio, the Andrew J Brady Music Center aims to connect audiences with live music while transforming Cincinnati’s riverfront. Designed by GBBN, the project, which opened in mid-2021, intends to reshape how people throughout the region engage with public space on the banks of the Ohio River.
With its entrance facing the river, the venue can seat 4,400 people on three levels indoors and can host 8,800 people for the seasonal stage outdoors. Between the indoor and outdoor spaces, the Brady Center for Music can host 140 to 160 concert events a year.
The inside venue provides clear sightlines from all vantage points, whether from the floor or the balconies. That has been achieved with structural V columns that occupy less floor space and are less visually obstructive than straight, vertical columns, helping to ensure unobstructed views of the stage. The venue also includes dressing rooms, VIP spaces, and outdoor patios.
Outside, the venue features perforated, color-shifting metal panels as part of a Kolorshift system that creates a dynamic facade day or night. Called Purple Rain, the product ensures no two views of the exterior are ever the same. The center also provides multiple access points—the street, parking garage, and adjacent park—so that patrons can easily access the venue by foot, car, or shared ride.
Messer Construction poured 4,900 square feet of concrete for the stage, loading dock, and exterior areas. Fun fact: Someone who owns 2,250 albums could cover the entire square footage of the stage with their record collection.
Other Team Members:
Owner: Music Entertainment Management Inc.
Design architect and architect of record: GBBN
MEP engineer: CMTA and Veregy (formerly Dynamix Engineering)
Acoustics: Harvey Marshall Berling Associates
Structural engineer: THP
General contractor/construction manager: Messer Construction
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, Hensel Phelps among the nation's 50 largest design-build contractors
A ranking of the Top 50 Design-Build Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Balfour Beatty agrees to acquire Parsons Brinckerhoff for $626 million
Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction, investment and services group, has agreed to acquire Parsons Brinckerhoff for $626 million. Balfour Beatty executives believe the merger will be a major step forward in accomplishing a number of Balfour Beatty’s objectives, including establishing a global professional services business of scale, creating a leading position in U.S. civil infrastructure, particularly in the transportation sector, and enhancing its global reach.
| Aug 11, 2010
Construction unemployment rises to 17.1% as another 64,000 construction workers are laid off in September
The national unemployment rate for the construction industry rose to 17.1 percent as another 64,000 construction workers lost their jobs in September, according to an analysis of new employment data released today. With 80 percent of layoffs occurring in nonresidential construction, Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, said the decline in nonresidential construction has eclipsed housing’s problems.
| Aug 11, 2010
Billings at U.S. architecture firms exceeds $40 billion annually
In the three-year period leading up to the current recession, gross billings at U.S. architecture firms increased nearly $16 billion from 2005 and totaled $44.3 billion in 2008. This equates to 54 percent growth over the three-year period with annual growth of about 16 percent. These findings are from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Business of Architecture: AIA Survey Report on Firm Characteristics.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bowdoin College has country's first newly constructed LEED-certified ice arena
Bowdoin College's new Sidney J. Watson Arena, dedicated January 18, 2009, has become the first newly constructed ice arena in the United States to earn coveted LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).
| Aug 11, 2010
CHPS debuts high-performance building products database
The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) made a new tool available to product manufacturers to help customers identify building products that contribute to sustainable, healthy, built environments. The tool is an online, searchable database where manufacturers can list products that have met certain environmental or health standards ranging from recycled content to materials that contribute to improved indoor air quality.
| Aug 11, 2010
VA San Diego Healthcare System Building 1 Seismic Correction
San Diego, Calif.
Three decades after its original construction in the early 1970s, the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System Building 1 fell far short of current seismic codes. This not only put the building and its occupants—patients, doctors, nurses, visitors, and administrative staff—at risk in the event of a major earthquake, it violated a California state mandate requiring all hospitals to either retrofit or rebuild.
