Designed to explore new technological innovations in the performing arts and to provide the highest quality in acoustic and visual facilities, Davis Brody Bond collaborated with Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners on the new Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York as an important new resource to the institute.

Precisely tailored to its complex program, EMPAC houses a 1,200-seat concert hall, a 400-seat theatre with a full fly tower, two adaptive environment (“black box”) studios including an audio and video production suite, artists-in-residence studios, a campus radio station, and a dance studio. As the nation’s oldest technological university, with one of the first undergraduate programs in Electronic Media and Arts in the United States, RPI has validated its position at the forefront of experimental media with this facility.

The difficulties presented by the site’s steep hillside were turned into architectural advantages by the design team, which located the entrance at the highest elevation. From the entrance, patrons descend through seven discrete levels of the central atrium, which serves as the social hub of the building. The concert hall is wrapped inside a “hull” of curved cedar planks, which hovers inside a glass exterior enclosure. The hull provides a practical and elegant enclosure for the extensive mechanical duct spaces and circulation corridors around the concert hall.

A true “black box” venue with minimal architectural finish, Studio 1 is well suited for audio and music but is optimized for scientific visualization, multi-screen and immersive performances, and dance. The immediate physical space can all but disappear; video projection can take place on all sides beneath a 40’ ceiling that features a walkable theatrical grid over the entire surface of the room. The floors are finished in resilient wood and painted matte black. The walls are composed of adjustable acoustic wall diffusion panels and are also painted matte black. Studio 2 is a smaller sibling of Studio 1, and while being well suited for dance and visual presentations, it is optimized for music recitals and recording and therefore has a “lights on” architectural character rather than being a black box. In addition to its tension wire grid ceiling, Studio 2 is finished with a resilient maple floor and ivory-colored adjustable acoustic wall diffusion panels.

EMPAC is one of the most advanced performing arts venues in the nation. It provides students with opportunities to express their creative interests and engages both the campus and the surrounding community with the electronic and performing arts.

Associate Architect with Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners