Ravinia Festival Dining Pavilion
Award of Merit: Institutional
The dining pavilion at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Ill., was to be multifunctional.
The spaces were to offer a variety of price points so that they could meet the expectations of Ravinia’s constituents. In addition, the facility was to offer a dining option that matched aesthetically the festival’s world-class music but also needed to be an attractive destination able to keep Ravinia vital in a competitive concert marketplace.
Ravinia was losing Chicago Symphony Orchestra audiences when those would-be patrons could not secure a reservation in a climate-controlled restaurant.
Moreover, the Mirabelle restaurant that was erected in the 1970s had been operating in excess of its capacity for more than a decade and even simple take-out items like hamburger had become a journey in patience.
Due to the openness and ambience of Ravinia, a new foodservice facility would be limited to the Mirabelle site and have to fit within the context of the overall site.
Huge Expansion in Size
Feasibility studies were developed, and a recommendation for a dining pavilion of approximately five times the size was presented to handle the volume of people—about 20,000 people per event.
The massing of the dining pavilion was broken down through layered steps in the façade, a recess of the found floor and an introduction of terrace dining on the second floor above a one-story extension to the south. In addition, the façade facing the park is predominantly floor-to-ceiling glass to provide extensive views of the landscape and festival activities.
The only other material used on the façade is weather-treated mahogany wood for the spandrels between floors and the frames of the windows and doors. It was selected for its warm color and sympathetic relationship to the landscape.
Timing was crucial so that the pavilion could be opened for the 2007 season, and the schedule was limited to off season, the nine months of which six are winter.
Programmed overtime was scheduled to accelerate the project. In addition, coordination of the massive amount of MEP was implemented for the building but also the two kitchen facilities that span the length on each floor. Finally, a cocoon was erected around the building so the curtain wall could be erected.
Jury Comments: “This is just a delightful facility. We like the strong architecture but it doesn’t detract from the other buildings. The way the landscaping was done—you never would know it is new. It’s a winner architecturally, but it was not a challenging project construction-wise.”
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