View from Gainsborough Street / © Ann Beha Architects/Gensler
Boston – The New England Conservatory, the nation’s oldest independent school of music, broke ground on its $85 million student life and performance center, a hub for performance, practice, and residential living.
Located in Boston’s Fenway, the conservatory offers undergraduate and graduate degree, continuing education, and preparatory programs for students nationwide. The center is the conservatory’s first new construction project in over 60 years.
Designed by Ann Beha Architects, with Gensler as architect of record, the center offers orchestra and jazz rehearsal rooms, a black box opera theater, a music library and resource center, 250 student rooms and suites, a dining commons, and spaces for collaboration and practice. Performance facilities will serve students and faculty and welcome the community, continuing NEC’s long tradition of public outreach.
Clad in variegated terra cotta tile, with broad expanses of glass, the 10-story building is distinctly contemporary, bridging NEC’s adjacent historic structures. The transparent three-story building base showcases NEC activities and performances, and with the conservatory’s historic buildings, forms an architectural ensemble spanning two centuries. The building envelope, systems, and materials support the NEC’s commitment to environmental stewardship, including new landscape for the entire campus precinct.
Construction is slated for completion in 2017.
Other members of the design team include: preconstruction advisor, Tishman Construction; structural engineer, Lemessurier Consultants; MEP/FP engineer, Altieri Sebor Wieber; landscape architect, Carol R. Johnson Associates; civil engineer, Nitsch Engineering; acoustical consultant, Kirkegaard Associates; and theater consultant, Fisher Dachs Associates.
