Troy, N.Y.—Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute celebrated the opening of its new 220,000-sq.-ft. Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) last month, designed by a team from the New York offices of Grimshaw Architects, Davis Brody Bond Aedas, and Buro Happold Consulting Engineers.

EMPAC houses a 1,200-seat concert hall, a 400-seat theater, two adaptive environmental studios, an audio and visual production suite, artists-in-residence studios, and a dance studio. The acousticians of Kirkegaard Associates achieved total acoustic isolation for the four main venues of the concert hall, the theater, and the two studios.

The project is built off a plane of the campus and into the hillside. The goal was to sink the windowless masses of the fly tower and studios deep into the hillside and allow the public and occupied spaces to stay above ground where there is the most exposure to daylight and natural ventilation.

It serves as a pathway for students to get from the street up to campus. A café is located at the base of the concert hall. "We were very keen that this is a social space on campus," says William Horgan, associate principal with Grimshaw.

The most visually striking element of EMPAC is the shell of the concert hall. The room is "wrapped" inside a hull of curved cedar planks. This egg-shaped structure hovers within the glass exterior enclosure and actually supports the roof. The wood conceals a steel framework that provides support for access bridges to the concert hall, which rest on acoustic isolation barriers. On the inside, the upper walls of the hall are made of a caste concrete with pulverized limestone as an aggregate. The lower walls are clad in maple, which breaks up the sound very aggressively, explains R. Lawrence Kirkegaard, FASA and Hon. AIA, president and principal acoustician of Kirkegaard Associates.

Another unique aspect of the project is the heated glazed façade in the north wing that provides uniform and efficient heating to the internal atrium space surrounding the concert hall. The mullions on the glass are heated by a hot water-glycol solution that circulates within the steelwork.

A custom EMPAC seat was also designed for the hall and theater in a collaboration with the Grimshaw design team, industrial designers Billings Jackson, and Poltrona Frau of Italy. An upholstered maple clam-shell seat was designed with optimal acoustical properties and theatrical requirements. The seat will go into full production this year. The project is seeking LEED Silver certification.