A new campus focal point and incubator for multidisciplinary learning
College of the Holy Cross was founded in 1843, the first Jesuit college in New England. It is consistently ranked one of the best liberal arts colleges in the country. The campus is a registered Arboretum.
The $110 million Performing Arts Center reflects the College’s renewed emphasis on the Arts. It is a campus focal point of multi-disciplinary learning and creative collaboration, providing facilities for both the fine arts and performing arts. The Center includes an acoustically superior 400-seat multipurpose proscenium concert hall and theatre which serves as the College’s principal venue for symphonic music, chamber music, jazz, Gamelan, as well as opera, music, theatre, and dance; a 200-seat flexible black box performance space for theatre, performance support spaces such as scene and costume shops, and related storage, and a high-technology “beehive” space that supports creative collaboration among students from all academic disciplines. The beehive is programmed as a shared multimedia space for sound recording, sound editing, video editing, film, and lighting and set design, and includes collaborative workspaces, multipurpose rehearsal spaces, and gathering spaces with movable furniture. The building program also includes an art gallery, lobby space, café, and multi-use spaces to encourage collaboration among the arts.
For engineering building systems design, a deep understanding of theatre design and acoustics was critical to the success of the aspirational project. A highly collaborative design team enabled Altieri to anticipate the range of program requirements, work together to achieve best solutions, and deliver systems that met a wide variety of critical program requirements including low noise criteria, vibration isolation, and humidification and dehumidification sequences to maintain a healthy environment for performances, musical instruments, and artwork.
