Sound Campus Life

Situated directly across the street from historic Jordan Hall, this new facility for New England Conservatory includes a 250-seat opera theater, orchestral rehearsal/performance room, and jazz rehearsal and recording space as part of the campus student life complex. The project also includes 252-bed dormitory, a new library and a music commons/ lounge area adjacent to a new dining commons. Kirkegaard provided room acoustics, sound isolation, mechanical noise control, and AV systems design services.

Flexible Performance Space

The opera studio is a flexible performance space with an orchestra pit and reconfigurable seating, located directly below the orchestra rehearsal and jazz ensemble rooms but fully isolated acoustically. Its warm acoustic serves singers well. The orchestra rehearsal/performance room’s large volume comfortably accommodates 75 musicians.

The jazz ensemble room is designed primarily for jazz but is also the main live room for recording any large music ensemble. Both rehearsal rooms use a similar architectural vocabulary of split-face cmu, sound-absorbing panels, wood floors, canvas reflectors, and movable absorption, but the location and relative proportions of the treatments tilt one room towards liveness and the other towards loudness control.

Disciplines

Room Acoustics, Sound Isolation, Mechanical Noise Control, and AV Systems Design Services.