New World Center

This campus for an orchestral academy is a musical laboratory for new ways of teaching, experiencing and presenting music. It was the result of a collaboration between the orchestra’s founder and the Canadian-American architect, and stands beside a public park in the heart of the beach district.

Behind a plain white box and a tall glass facade, sculptural volumes hold rehearsal rooms and practice spaces stacked around a bright atrium. The concert hall is flexible, with seating that can be rearranged and curved sails that serve as projection surfaces, and a large wall on the park lets concerts be shown outdoors to audiences on the lawn.