A project team that included the designer BOKA Powell and general contractor McCarthy Building Companies recently completed the 55,000-sf Noble Family Performing Arts Center on the Midway campus of Parish Episcopal School in North Dallas.
That same team was involved in another of this school’s expansions, the 24,000-sf Gene E. Phillips Activity Center, which opened for the 2017-2018 school year.
The private Parish Episcopal School celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Since 2002 it has owned and operated out of what once was ExxonMobil’s Pei Cobb Freed-designed corporate headquarters. The school currently has about 1,200 Pre-K through 12th-grade students and 150 faculty. Its new Performing Arts Center “will play a pivotal role as we celebrate our history and launch a future of limitless possibilities for our students,” said Dave Monaco, Allen Meyer Family Head of School, in a prepared statement.
DESIGN CONTINUITY
The new facility consists of various spaces that include a 515-seat performance hall whose chamber is more than 50 ft tall. A Black Box theater has an audience capacity of 120. The facility features a music hall, rehearsal rooms, and a film screening room. The back-of-house spaces include a scene shop, dressing rooms with a tailoring shop, storage areas, offices, and a storm shelter. A Gallery Space displays works by students and visiting artists.
Parish Episcopal School engaged BOKA Powell—which provided architecture and interior design services—to envision a new building in keeping with the campus’ existing style. During construction, which began in November 2019, McCarthy deployed BIM models, laser scans of the slab, and aerial images, according to the firm’s region president Joe Jourvenal.
The Performing Arts Center connects to existing buildings and incorporates many of the same materials. Pre-cast concrete panels are arranged in a rhythmic pattern to capture the sunlight in a theatrical manner as a reinterpretation of the dramatic north light of the existing Great Hall vault. A grand entrance welcomes guests into a naturally lit lobby.
The completed project has optimized acoustics and a control room with the latest light and sound equipment.
The performing arts center is named in honor of the three children of Natalie and Scott Noble, who invested $3.7 million in the school’s “Limitless” fundraising campaign.
Click here for a short virtual tour of the new building.
Related Stories
| Jan 4, 2011
An official bargain, White House loses $79 million in property value
One of the most famous office buildings in the world—and the official the residence of the President of the United States—is now worth only $251.6 million. At the top of the housing boom, the 132-room complex was valued at $331.5 million (still sounds like a bargain), according to Zillow, the online real estate marketplace. That reflects a decline in property value of about 24%.
| Dec 17, 2010
Sam Houston State arts programs expand into new performance center
Theater, music, and dance programs at Sam Houston State University have a new venue in the 101,945-sf, $38.5 million James and Nancy Gaertner Performing Arts Center. WHR Architects, Houston, designed the new center to connect two existing buildings at the Huntsville, Texas, campus.
| Nov 3, 2010
Park’s green education center a lesson in sustainability
The new Cantigny Outdoor Education Center, located within the 500-acre Cantigny Park in Wheaton, Ill., earned LEED Silver. Designed by DLA Architects, the 3,100-sf multipurpose center will serve patrons of the park’s golf courses, museums, and display garden, one of the largest such gardens in the Midwest.
| Oct 13, 2010
Biloxi’s convention center bigger, better after Katrina
The Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center in Biloxi is once again open for business following a renovation and expansion necessitated by Hurricane Katrina.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community center under way in NYC seeks LEED Platinum
A curving, 550-foot-long glass arcade dubbed the “Wall of Light” is the standout architectural and sustainable feature of the Battery Park City Community Center, a 60,000-sf complex located in a two-tower residential Lower Manhattan complex. Hanrahan Meyers Architects designed the glass arcade to act as a passive energy system, bringing natural light into all interior spaces.
| Oct 13, 2010
Bookworms in Silver Spring getting new library
The residents of Silver Spring, Md., will soon have a new 112,000-sf library. The project is aiming for LEED Silver certification.
| Oct 12, 2010
Holton Career and Resource Center, Durham, N.C.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Special Recognition. Early in the current decade, violence within the community of Northeast Central Durham, N.C., escalated to the point where school safety officers at Holton Junior High School feared for their own safety. The school eventually closed and the property sat vacant for five years.
| Oct 12, 2010
Richmond CenterStage, Richmond, Va.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Bronze Award. The Richmond CenterStage opened in 1928 in the Virginia capital as a grand movie palace named Loew’s Theatre. It was reinvented in 1983 as a performing arts center known as Carpenter Theatre and hobbled along until 2004, when the crumbling venue was mercifully shuttered.
| Oct 12, 2010
Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Gartner Auditorium was originally designed by Marcel Breuer and completed, in 1971, as part of his Education Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Despite that lofty provenance, the Gartner was never a perfect music venue.
| Sep 13, 2010
Second Time Around
A Building Team preserves the historic facade of a Broadway theater en route to creating the first green playhouse on the Great White Way.
