Performance Hall and Music Building, Edith a nd Peter O’Donnell Jr.

The future music building for the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities & Technology forms the heart of The University of Texas Dallas’ new cultural district, the Edith and Peter O'Donnell Jr. Athenaeum. As the new home of the university’s music department, the building offers state-of-the-art performance, rehearsal, recording, and classroom spaces, catering to the school’s diverse programs. The design approach began with the idea of shared experience, which is essential to teaching, creating, and enjoying music. Centered around people, the design emphasizes the connections between musicians and audiences, students and faculty, campus and community, with spaces that inspire connection, creativity, and innovation.

Driving the design from the inside out, the desire for state-of-the-art learning, performance, and practice spaces for a variety of music types and ensembles shaped the building program, form, and materials. The building includes two large rehearsal rooms that can be used for performances, single rehearsal rooms, a percussion studio, teaching classrooms, a recording studio, and a variety of spaces for learning, studying, and impromptu musical performances. The public spaces are designed for a variety of learning and study environments, accommodating areas for quiet and focused work as well as areas for connections and gatherings. Outside the building, an event courtyard in the plaza has been carved out of the building form to create an intimate space for events and performances that can accommodate up to 300 guests.

The hallmark of the new building is a 680-seat music performance hall with a vineyard-style configuration to accommodate diverse live music. This spatial arrangement locates seats on all sides of the stage, providing closer connections between musicians and audience members. Acoustics, sight lines, and comfort were the key drivers in creating a warm and intimate space for all sizes of performances. A dedicated choir balcony is incorporated in the upper mezzanine level behind the stage. The defining feature of the all-wood clad hall is the dynamic wood liner that encompasses the upper walls and ceiling. This linear wood liner takes subtle inspiration from the staff lines found on sheet music; its pattern was closely designed with acoustical engineers to absorb and reflect sound for an optimized listening experience from every seat.

As an important component of the University of Texas Dallas’ new cultural district, the Edith and Peter O'Donnell Jr. Athenaeum, the new music building was also designed from the outside in. The overarching vision of the Athenaeum is to interpret the classical athenaeum—a space where art, science, and ideas could meet in lively dialogue—into a new model for breaking down disciplinary boundaries, engaging the broader community, and elevating the arts at a university dedicated primarily to science, technology, engineering, and math. With a performance hall and multiple museums located around a linear arts plaza, the Athenaeum establishes an epicenter for arts, performance, and learning at the southern gateway to the UTD campus.

In keeping with the master plan identity, the exterior of the new music building is shaped to accommodate the interior needs while also responding to the massing of the neighboring Phase 1 Museum as well as the exterior spaces and connections to the campus and arts plaza. The massing of each building in the Athenaeum floats a larger second floor above a smaller ground floor, creating an overhang effect that creates covered exterior spaces surrounding the plaza, to be used for a variety of events, gatherings, and contributing to everyday campus life. Responding to the extreme climate conditions of Dallas, these covered versatile spaces provide shade from the hot summer sun and winter rains, allowing the Phase 1 Museum and music building to use these areas year-round. Facing the plaza, the music building’s north-south oriented bar on the second level houses two large rehearsal and performance rooms, a percussion room, and a student study lounge. Large expanses of glass are used throughout to connect activity within the buildings back to the campus and arts plaza. Also keeping with the master plan identity, the building features a distinctively patterned, white precast concrete cladding on all sides that is informed by the surrounding context and responds to the ever-changing light of the Texas skies. The façade’s textured and sandblasted finish creates a more intimate sense of scale that relates to buildings and materials across campus, and creates a holistic identity for the masterplan.

In its design and purpose, the building represents the vision behind the Edith and Peter O'Donnell Jr. Athenaeum as well as the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, & Technology – to create a place that fluidly connects art, science, creativity, and innovation, and invites engagement and dialogue from all directions and from broad audiences.