Tradeline, Inc. | Leading-edge resources for facilities planning and management www.tradelineinc.com

Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center

Completion Date March 1999
Published March 2001

As of 1996, Willamette University's music department was housed in various buildings throughout the campus. With an exceptional faculty and a majority of the student body active in some portion of the school's music programs, there was a need to consolidate and update these facilities to satisfy, support, and encourage student interests.

After analyzing several possible locations, the new facility was placed adjacent to the University Playhouse and the Fine Arts building, thereby creating an arts corridor that brings music, theatre, and art together at the heart of the campus. The one-story building reinforces the traditional design aesthetic of the campus, paying homage to historic buildings across the quad in its use of brick and a defining pitch roof.

Inside, the Music Center includes a 7,594-gsf concert hall and 17,606 gsf of rehearsal, studio, practice, and support space. The 441-seat concert hall is used for recitals, small ensembles, and orchestra, band, and choral purposes. A separate rehearsal hall supplements the concert hall and serves as a warm-up space, an intimate recital venue, a teaching facility, and a green room.

The concert hall is acoustically designed for flexible performance needs. A combination of custom faceted-concrete walls and large folding panels dampens reverberations to one second in length for speech, or increases them to more than four seconds for cathedral resonance. Wood paneling provides a warm, inviting atmosphere. In addition, suspended pendant lights, overhead catwalks, and exposed ductwork create a vertically layered ceiling without diminishing the overall grandeur of the space.

A transparent lobby and gallery along the building's west side provide a prefunction space and establishes a visual connection with the rest of the campus. Acoustically isolated faculty teaching studios and practice rooms adorn the south end, bringing the entire full-time faculty together for the first time in the Music Department's history. An outdoor terrace on the building's north end offers an alternative class setting and an inviting location for informal musical performances.

Project Information
Building Owner: Willamette University
Owner Contact: Brian Hardin, VP for Financial Affairs
Building Location: Salem, OR UNITED STATES
Project Type: New Construction
Principal Building Function: Performance and Teaching
Project Timeline
Oct 1996Planning Start
Dec 1996Design Start
Sep 1997Construction Start
Mar 1999Completion
Last known status: Completed
Project Cost: $8,700,000
Construction Cost: $6,737,548
Cost Per Sq. Ft: $267
About These Cost Figures
Building Information
Project Includes: Auditorium
Education
Performing Arts
Theater
Total GSF: 25,200
Total NSF: 16,800
Efficiency: 67%
Building Population: 808
People Density: 31 gsf/person
Planning Module: 12' x 12'
Office Size: 12' x 14' NSF
Power Req: Lighting: 1.67 w/nsf
HVAC Req: Concert Hall: 1.63 cfm/gsf; Balance of Building: 1.72 cfm/gsf
Structure/Foundation: Bearing wall with wood trusses at concert hall and steel elsewhere with concrete spread footings
Project Team
Architect Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects LLP
Consultant - Civil Engineer KPFF Consulting Engineers
Consultant - Structural Engineer KPFF Consulting Engineers
Profile Created 03/31/2001
Last Updated 04/04/2006
About the Reported Cost Figures
The cost figures reported are supplied by the firms that submitted these projects for publication, which in most cases are the designers or builders. Whereas these sources are intimately familiar with their projects, they may not be fully aware of the owners' finally-realized and recorded costs. In some cases, costs are truly and completely accounted for, and in others they represent a near approximation of the final costs. Costs have not been adjusted for year of construction, nor has any attempt been made to make regional cost adjustments.

Further, costs are not comparable on any kind of detailed standard costing model. Hence, it is possible for the cost of one building to include a steam boiler, while the cost of a comparable building might not include the boiler, if steam is being supplied from an already existing campus grid. Or, in another case, a building might include excess boiler capacity to supply steam to another building. Some submittals include fees or unusual site improvements as part of the construction costs, which others do not.
Circulate to:

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center

Photo courtesy of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership © eckert & eckert

Notes:














Copyright 2008 Tradeline Inc.
All Rights Reserved
ISSN: 1096-4894