The sound of music can now be heard in the recently opened Prior Performing Arts Center, a new 84,000-square-foot venue for fine and performing arts at the @collegeoftheholycross, a Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, MA. Sited at the highest point on campus, the center was designed by @diller_scofidio_renfro as an incubator for multi-disciplinary learning and creativity, offering a space for the arts that is accessible to members of the college community and beyond. The heart of the center, known as the Beehive, is a flexible space that acts as a connective tissue between the public programs and the student productions, allowing back-of-house functions to activate the building. The space’s informal, hackable nature turns it into a creative playground for study and performance for all students. Much like a stage, the Beehive’s materials combine both the raw and refined. An exposed dark steel technical infrastructure zone rings the space, standing in contrast with the rich woods of the stairs, bars, seating, and student collaboration zones. Around this central space programs are divided into four pavilions contained within two pairs of walls that intersect to form a nine-square grid. The corners of the grid feature a courtyard garden with an amphitheater, an outdoor teaching area and workspace, a meditative garden, and a sculpture garden. The paired walls twist, rise, and interlock—the wall of one pavilion becoming the roof of its neighbor, forming a chain around the center and creating arched entries directly into the heart of the building. The Center also includes the Luth Concert Hall, a 400-seat convertible concert hall and proscenium theater for music, musical theater, and dance; the Boroughs Theatre, a 200-seat experimental theater space; support spaces for the performing arts; and the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery; a media lab; rehearsal rooms; and production spaces. Boston-based Perry Dean Rogers Architects served as executive architect. Photo: Brett Beyer. #Architecture #Design #Archilovers #ArchitectureLovers #PerformingArts #PerformingArtsCenter