Voxman Music Building at the University of Iowa in Iowa City by LMN Architects

Article source: LMN Architects

Vision

The Voxman Music Building celebrates musical performance at every turn, embracing a collaborative and exploratory student-driven model of education that treats every space as performance space. The building shares this sense of musical discovery with the community through a transparent expression. The pattern of streets and open spaces in the mixed-use district of Iowa City extends directly into the building’s multi-level interior spaces, cultivating a sense of vertical urban vitality and acknowledging its place within the community.

Exterior, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

• Architects: LMN Architects
• Project: Voxman Music Building at the University of Iowa
• Location: Iowa, Iowa City, USA
• Photography: Tim Griffith, Arturo Rojas, Wayne Johnson, Adam Hunter
• Client: University of Iowa
• LMN Architects Project Team Design Architect + Interior Designer: Mark Reddington, FAIA, (Design Partner); Sam Miller, AIA (Partner in Charge); Stephen Van Dyck, AIA (Project Designer); Wendy Pautz, AIA (Programming); Scott Crawford, Assoc. AIA, Steve DelFraino, AIA, Thomas Gerard, Alexander Harner, Jessica Harner, Erick Katzenstein, Julia Khorsand, Winnie Lam, John Mrozek, Assoc. AIA, Erik Perka, Assoc. AIA, Mary Anne Smith, AIA, Andrea Stewart, Alex Woodhouse (Project Team)
• Associate Architect: Neumann Monson Architects – Kevin Monson, AIA (Principal in Charge), Chris DeGroot, AIA (Principal), Josh Rechkemmer, AIA (Project Manager), Jesus Chucho Loria, AIA, Andrew Mixdorf, Assoc. AIA, Brad Nowasell, AIA, John Phung, AIA, Alese Van Holland (Project Team)
• Construction Manager: Mortenson
• Structural Engineer: Magnusson Klemencic Associates
• Landscape Architect: Confluence
• M/E/P Engineer: Design Engineers
• Project Size: 184,000 SF

Main-Street-Studio, Image Courtesy © Wayne Johnson

Site and Building Program

The six-story, 186,000-square-foot building is situated between campus and the downtown core of Iowa City, embracing both academic and urban experiences. The program comprises a 700-seat concert hall, a 200-seat recital hall, an organ performance hall, a music library, rehearsal rooms, practice rooms, classrooms, and faculty studios and offices linked by a series of vertically connected community spaces. A multi-story glass corner entry at a major downtown intersection reinforces the merger of campus and city, with the two major performance venues marking their presence on each of the main facades. Between the performance spaces, porous, day-lit circulation volumes interlink to form the student commons, performance and rehearsal lobby, and three-story atrium. A fourth floor exterior terrace, nestled between the wings of the rear facade, serves as gathering space that frames views to the city’s historic courthouse and countryside beyond.

Main-Street-Studio, Image Courtesy © Wayne Johnson

Exterior, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Design

The concert hall cantilevers over the Burlington Street sidewalk and the Student Commons below, while the recital hall, wrapped in a shingled-glass wall system, reaches out over the South Clinton Street sidewalk. A composition of subtly textured terra cotta panels and low-iron glass with delicate shading patterns wraps the full exterior. All spaces in the building, including performance halls, rehearsal rooms, offices, and common areas, provide natural light and connections with the outside, while maintaining acoustic isolation. Requirements of the facility’s high-profile performance spaces are met by high-performance digital design. The concert hall features a suspended “theatroacoustic” system, unifying acoustics, lighting, and life-safety requirements into a dramatic, multi- functional architectural expression, and the resulting intricately sculpted element is assembled out of 946 unique, folded-aluminum composite modules digitally fabricated from modules digitally designed and fabricated from the architects’ parametric model. In the recital hall, red-colored acoustical panels optimize the room’s acoustical properties while incorporating a wall-sized shingled-glass window that unites the performance event with the urban experience. In the three major rehearsal spaces, high ceilings are filled with swarms of brightly colored, kite-like reflectors that vary between solid and perforated to achieve dynamic acoustical and lighting effects.

Exterior, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Circulation-and-Common-Spaces, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Circulation-and-Common-Spaces, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Rehearsal-Rooms, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Recital-Hall, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Concert-Hall, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Concert-Hall, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Organ-Hall, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Library, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Student-Commons, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Student-Commons, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Image Courtesy © Adam Hunter

Circulation-and-Common-Spaces, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Circulation-and-Common-Spaces, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Circulation-and-Common-Spaces, Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith

Image Courtesy © Arturo Rojas

Image Courtesy © LMN Architects

Image Courtesy © LMN Architects

Image Courtesy © LMN Architects

Image Courtesy © LMN Architects

Image Courtesy © LMN Architects

Tags: Iowa City, USA

Categories: Concert hall, Event space, Music Centre, Music College, Music Hall

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2018 at 6:45 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.