First Glance

By Eleanor Young

says Grimshaw partner Andrew Whalley, who worked on the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (Empac) for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York State.

That is quite a claim from the practice that designed the Eden Project and Bath Spa – but the brief was demanding. There was to be no sound at all from mechanical equipment in the concert hall and studios, and the digital standards were so high that the university had to develop its own equipment.

The ‘analogue’ concert hall has its traditional shoebox design encased in a curving western cedar shell. It is offset by orthogonal studio spaces for digital work. Grimshaw’s had fun playing with the acoustic properties of glass fibre reinforced gypsum. One studio is highly reflective, the other absorbs light and sound in its black GFRG panels.