Earth Valley Theater

Birds fly across the audience at Earth Valley Theater, so their route through the venue was part of the design brief. A circuit links the aviaries to bird boxes above the auditorium and back to the roosts. Working with avian consultants, GOA adjusted the seating slope and clearances to accommodate this movement for Dancing with the Birds, an open-air performance in Yaohu Town, Yixing.

The theater occupies a valley at the town’s southern edge, with hills behind the stage. Beside the road, a stepped plinth contains ticketing and public facilities; its rectangular volumes screen the seating bowl from traffic. Visitors pass through three entrance halls into an auditorium that follows the terrain. Beyond the stage, the aviaries sit in a quieter branch of the valley toward a bamboo grove, separated from visitor activity by changes in level.

Conditions inside the aviaries were considered at the scale of each species. Thermally treated timber avoids painted interior surfaces, while gravel and mesh openings were selected to suit the birds. Dotted markings on glass reduce the risk of collisions.

The clay-like concrete forms and woven surfaces refer to Yixing’s pottery production and the bamboo around the site. Their construction, however, uses CNC-shaped ribs and hand-finished concrete, with woven HDPE for outdoor durability. Prefabricated light steel frames and insulated panels enclose the aviaries. Completed in 2025, the venue incorporates its equipment into this construction: cavities in the concrete house acoustic equipment, and cast gutters carry rainwater toward existing flood channels and streams.