Arts Education Building
Citation Award // Excellence in Architecture Design Commercial/Institutional
Architect // kcs ARCHITECTS – Architect of Record / H3 – Schematic Design
GC // DEW Construction Corporation
Site Engineer// Brickstone Land Consultants
Structural Engineer // Fohley Buhl Roberts & Associates Inc.
MEP // WV Engineering Assoc.
Description
kcs Architects was tasked with designing a new arts education facility to accommodate a growing community. The new building includes a black box theater, three dance studios, a green room, changing rooms, restrooms, staff spaces and a public lobby entrance facing Roxbury Street. Our design creates a rhythm of action on the street. We used narrower windows on the more residential side that grow larger and create a crescendo as you approach the entry courtyard which faces Keene’s Central Square. The black box theater, a windowless volume, is set back from the street. The lobby has a glass storefront entrance, similar in scale and height to other storefronts in the district. Above the storefront is a translucent wall system that glows during evening classes. Dance studios are located at the front of the building, making them well lit and providing a visual connection between the arts and the community.
Jury Comments
“A dramatic insertion into a town center, achieving a quiet bravura appropriate for the theatrical program and presence in the city, within a restrained budget for the total program area. A tightly packed rational plan and a valuable composition of volumes on the site. The opening of the street corner and the translucent illuminated entrance block are intelligent civic signals. The necessary economy of means has resulted in a spare, effective, clean assembly of volumes, with a clarity of construction. Detailing in construction is equally directed, with shifts of material colors, textures and densities, then material modules and bonding patterns from volume to volume, providing scale and distinction.”
Photo credit: architect