Grimshaw Architects’ design for the £135m Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in upstate New York, has a 1200-seat concert hall wrapped inside a hull of curved cedar planks

The organic forms of the concert hall, a 400-seat theatre and studios are set in an angular glazed enclosure.

Preventing noise breakout from the spaces was crucial so each is acoustically isolated structurally to form a “building in a building”, as is the HVAC plant room. A displacement ventilation system quietly pushes fresh air into the concert hall and theatre from beneath the seats. Warmed air is exhausted at ceiling level with the heat from the performance lighting. Buro Happold designed the building services.

Source

Building Sustainable Design