Rensselaer’s Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center: Troy, New York

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York opened up its new Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (”EMPAC”) earlier this month. The university selected Grimshaw Architects as the winner of an international competition to design the 220,000-square-foot EMPAC; the project team also included Buro Happold Consulting Engineers and architect of record Davis Brody Bond.

RPI is applying for a LEED Silver certification from USGBC for the EMPAC, which is actually built into the side of a hill on the university’s campus. EMPAC includes a 1200-seat concert hall, 400-seat theater, and various studios, A/V production rooms, and artists-in-residence studios. A 100-foot tall glass curtain wall provides interior views of the concert hall, which is clad on the exterior in western red cedar and also supports the building’s roof as a structural element.

Design goals included a high level of energy efficiency and acoustics; acousticians Kirkegaard Associates were actually able to achieve a total acoustic isolation for the concert hall. The image to the right (via Contract Magazine) looks directly up the curtain wall.

• Grimshaw Leads the Charge on EMPAC Project (CM)
• EMPAC (Grimshaw)