Symphonic Sails
When planning the new Music Education Facility at Central Washington University, Studio Meng Strazzara, the architect of record, designed a building that deviates from the modern collegiate gothic style seen across the campus.
The use of metal panels and sloped rooflines on the exterior of the 70,000-square-foot building are a departure from the facades that exist on the Ellensburg, Wash., campus.
Architects at Studio Meng Strazzara, the Seattle-based firm responsible for the exterior skin, opted to incorporate an extensive amount of glass and metal panels. But they also worked with brick to keep some connection to the campus’s historic architectural style.
"With the brick, we were tying into the historic materials on campus. With the metal we were differentiating from the historical materials on campus," said Dennis Erwood, principal in charge at Studio Meng Strazzara.
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The New Music Education Facility Total Project Cost (Phase I): $16.3 million
Total Project Cost (Phase II): $12.6 million Owner: Central Washington University Architect of Record: Studio Meng Strazzara Associate Architect/ Music Facility Specialists: Performance Architecture Acoustical and A/V Consultant: BAi LLC Theater Consultant: Knudson & Ward Inc. Civil Engineer: Studio Meng Strazzara Structural Engineer: Putnam Collins Scott Associates Inc. Mechanical & Electrical Engineers: Affiliated Engineers Inc. Landscape Architect: Site Workshop Commissioning Engineer: Abacus Engineered Systems Inc. General Contractor: Lydig Construction Inc. |
Constructed in two phases, the building houses the music department’s administration, classrooms and rehearsal spaces, a 150-seat recital hall and a 600-seat pure concert hall. The final construction cost for Phase I was $13.7 million and for Phase II was $5.5 million. The combined total project cost was $28.9 million.
Throughout the design process, there was a conscious effort to make the architecture a visual and spatial reflection of music itself.
"When we started out on this project we wanted to reflect what music was on the building," explained Project Manager Steve Lee of Studio Meng Strazzara. "It is rhythm, movement, patterns. From the start we were looking at all those elements and trying to incorporate it into the building and present it to the public. Whether you are in the concert hall or the recital hall or outside the building or in the lobby, we tried to incorporate all those elements and tie the whole thing together."
The metal panels that climb above the brick exterior are rectangular- shaped and intended to convey movement as seen in a musical score.
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| Throughout the design process, there was a conscious effort to make the architecture a visual and spatial reflection of music itself. This is the intent behind the varied score lines on the exterior metal panels and the sloped roof-lines. |
"As far as the patterning of the [metal] panels and how the transition happens between the metal panel and the brick – nothing is really ever straight, things are constantly moving, the metal panels are undulating in elevation, there are score lines in the metal panels that are all different dimensions," explained Lee.
Melody is not just symbolic within the interior; the landscape surrounding the building is intended to convey composition. "Even the concrete is scored, like the musical staff. We have five score lines going through from one side of the building to the other side of the building [on the ground], like the dark brick exterior relief," elaborated Lee. "Also, on the site lighting, we located the light so it looks like musical notes outside on those reveals in the concrete."
The Crescendo
The drum-shaped, glass-enclosed lobby connects the two wings of the building – the performance spaces and rehearsal spaces from the classrooms, practice rooms and faculty studios. Architects wanted it to serve as "a beacon at night for the performances."
The lobby/ main entrance is a drum, soaring as high as 46 feet and as low as 29 feet. The glass is fritted in a circular fashion above eye-level. The fritted and non-fritted glass creates movement within the lobby. The path of the sun casts shadows onto different parts of the building throughout the day.
In the lobby, "there is kind of an opposing shape, a curved line that divides the glass from clear vision glass to the fritted glass above," explained Erwood. "It provides the differential experience of sun shining in the nonfritted areas and creates patterns on the floors and the walls of the lobby space."
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| In the drum-shaped lobby, the curved ceiling element doesn’t actually come all the way to the walls. It is designed to appear as if it were suspended. |
In the lobby there are 12 vertical concrete columns. Between the columns are aluminum fins (or shelving), which conceal four-by-six tube steel structural connections that tie the concrete columns together. The fins are positioned around the entire circumference at the 15-foot level; at the 30-foot level the fins are placed halfway around the circumference.
"The shape of the upsweep of the roof [in the lobby], is similar to the shape of the sail walls that are in the concert hall," said Erwood. "Each office [Performance Architecture, the associate firm, and Studio Meng Strazzara] picked up on the design elements – the sail walls, the fins, and the shape of the lobby itself."
The Pure Concert Hall
The sail walls in the 600-seat pure concert hall, create the clarity of sound and reflect the inherent rhythm and movement of sound.
"The sound field in the concert hall, and the recital hall as well, is exactly the same in all the seats and on the stage. It doesn’t change at all," said Charles Bonner, principal in charge, BAi Consultants, the firm responsible for the acoustics and audio/visual. "There are no bad seats."
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| The 150-seat recital hall is used for smaller venues; often a student performance cannot fill the 600-seat pure concert hall. |
The sails are composed of three layers of 5/8-inch thick drywall (or sheetrock). Bonner explained that the joints are staggered and taped and the finish of the drywall is Level 5.
"In construction terminology, Level 5 drywall finish is extremely smooth and extremely non-porous," said Bonner. "The surfaces are curved and they are extremely smooth."
In the unoccupied concert hall with the curtains undeployed, or stored, the reverberation time is about 2.3 seconds. With the curtains fully deployed it is 1.6 seconds.
In the 150-seat recital hall with the curtains stored, unoccupied, the reverberation time is 2 seconds, with the curtains fully deployed it is 1.3 seconds.
Performance Architecture was responsible for the music performance spaces and other interiors. Together with BAi they blended aesthetics and acoustics to create a 600-seat pure concert hall, 150-seat recital hall, the rehearsal rooms (instrumental, choral and jazz), the music practice rooms and faculty studios.
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PRODUCT DATA Brick/Masonry: Mutual Materials |
"The design concept for the pure concert hall was the idea that the undulating sails are symbolic of sound undulating through space and moving; it is dynamic," said Project Manager Monica Hardy of Performance Architecture, the associate architecture firm.
"The whole idea is that all these sails are growing out of the middle sail on the platform. They are all overlapping."
The aesthetic design behind the pure concert hall was one of intimacy. Performance Architecture wanted to "create spaces where you wouldn’t feel like you were in a huge sea of seats."
There are six parterres – three on the left and three on the right. "The parterre seating is very similar to a box seat in a theater," said Hardy. "It separates people a little bit and gives them a unique space within a huge space."
The facility opened in time for students to start in the fall quarter of 2004. The grand opening ceremony for the new Music Education Facility was held Oct. 3, 2004. The university had outgrown its former music building, Hertz Hall, which was constructed in 1963 for a music department of 150 students. Since then, the CWU music program has produced more music educators than any other school in the Northwest, and is growing to a projected 326 majors in 2010.
The inaugural performance by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra was held Oct. 13, 2004, and in the words of Monica Hardy, "They all loved it." Performers said the sound was very clear and they had very good performer-to-performer acoustics.