In collaboration with Goettsch Partners, Hoerr Schaudt is designing the new Arts Green for the Northwestern University’s School of Music building. The project focuses on sustainable design and will pursue LEED certification. Northwestern will construct the state-of-the-art School of Music building facing an ‘arts green’ that will replace the existing Arts Circle on its Evanston campus. Envisioned as a signature building for the University, the new facility will enable the Bienen School of Music to consolidate all of its programs in one area for the first time in more than 30 years. The building and arts green will be located on the southern end of Northwestern’s lakefront campus and will be designed to connect students with spectacular views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline.
The addition of new campus facilities in Bradley’s west campus significantly altered its open space. A major challenge to creating a new quad was the variety of architectural edges and building masses surrounding it that offered few doors or windows. As a pedestrian space, it felt imposing. Hoerr Schaudt’s conceptual design for the quad transforms the oddly-shaped quad into a unifying element for the west campus. New ‘human scale’ edges along architecture, such as the long east-west pergola, define the edges of the quad and orient pedestrians within the large space. The design also balances the wide open green with more intimate spaces, such as a series of seating niches set amongst a patchwork of grasses, groundcovers and shrubs.
