Bureau V Architecture designed the new home of the Bushwick Starr, the Obie Award-winning nonprofit theater. Described by The New York Times as “bright and welcoming without having sacrificed the invitation of wildness,” the LEED Gold adaptive reuse project operates as a locus for the institution, the community of Bushwick, and for the future of experimental theater.
The Bushwick Starr is an organization defined by both its artists and its community. Since 2007, it has grown into a thriving theatrical venue, a vital neighborhood arts center, and a destination for exciting and engaging performances. The Bushwick Starr provides a springboard for emerging professional artists to make career-defining leaps, and it is a sanctuary where established artists come to experiment and innovate.
“From the branch library to the community arts center to the theater, arts entities have long known that their role in the community lies far beyond curation and presentation of the arts,” says Bureau V Architecture founding principal, Peter Zuspan. “The Starr fully understands this and the design of its new home focuses on creating a sense of care for its community, from providing the resource of uncurated public space, to urgent theatrical programming, to respecting the bodily autonomy of all New Yorkers.”
To serve the nonprofit’s mission, the building’s design includes a Black Box Theater, a streetfront Lobby, and a rehearsal Studio, as well as back-of-house amenities, including an onsite wood shop, office, and greenroom.
The spacious and versatile Black Box theater holds state-of-the art theatrical systems, including sprung flooring, an extensive lighting grid, flexible seating, and acoustic isolation. The theater’s design includes more than 20 potential seating and stage arrangements to serve the diverse needs of performing artists for years to come.
The Starr’s new home brings the nonprofit theater directly to the streets of Bushwick. While the Starr’s previous location was located on the second floor of a building on Starr street, its new home opens onto the sidewalk through an expandable and accessible streetfront lobby complete with a large glazed garage door, combining the manufacturing ethos of the neighborhood with the openness of the mission-based nonprofit.
“The lobby is one of the most underutilized spaces in the contemporary American city. The design of The Bushwick Starr seeks to change this,” says Bureau V Architecture founding principal, Peter Zuspan.
Complementing the curated nature of the Starr’s Black Box programming, the Lobby is intended to be a public, community amenity for ad-hoc gathering as well as community-focused and community-led events. From artist talks, classes, film screenings, and public presentations to a local market or a place for children to do their homework afterschool, the lobby is an open, flexible, and expandable venue in its own right, designed to meet a variety of potential community-based activities.
The Lobby’s design recontextualizes aesthetic qualities from a local Bushwick staple: the car repair shop. The Lobby’s two tone walls, raw concrete floors, steel tables, neon signage, and garage doors are juxtaposed with a sculpted ceiling, performance lighting design, and generous fenestration to create a welcoming space for its patrons.
The Lobby's expandable size is enabled by a 20-foot wide, vertically rolling door that separates the Lobby from the neighboring Studio. When closed, the door operates as a canvas for a program of local artists’ murals, to be updated periodically throughout the life of the building. When open, the Lobby’s more mechanic shop materials of steel doors, steel tables, and concrete floors are juxtaposed against the Studio’s maple floors and stark white walls to create a visually contrasting but spatially cohesive, community-driven event space.
The Studio, also located along the facade, includes a sprung wood floor, generous fenestration, acoustic treatments, and flexible lighting for performing artists’ rehearsals. It doubles as an exhibition space, equipped with the lighting, structural, and technical infrastructure found in a contemporary gallery.
While seemingly quotidian, the design and positioning of the restrooms in the Starr’s Lobby are purposeful and political. “Going to the bathroom in an American city is a transgressive act. Where is the bathroom? What’s the door code? Do I have to buy something? It wasn’t always like this, and it shouldn’t be now,” says Zuspan. The lobby restrooms consist of gender-inclusive, single stall water closets that surround a custom cast, sculptural sink that cantilevers into the lobby, positioned directly at the entrance to the building.
The building’s connection to the neighborhood does not stop at its facade. The Starr’s new home is located on a block of Eldert Street that has no through traffic. A rare occurrence in New York City’s expansive street grid, its site allows the nonprofit to create programming not only within its own walls, but, through sanctioned street closure permits, directly on the streets of Bushwick itself.
The Starr’s street presence not only provides expansive community programming opportunities, but also welcomes all residents, embracing the Starr’s understanding of its diverse community, from artists and theater-goers to local Bushwick residents to the city at large.
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© Bureau V Architecture 2025