New UNL music building will allow students to ‘push the boundaries’ of creativity
By CHRIS DUNKER – Lincoln Journal Star, Neb. (TNS)
UNL music building construction, 12.16
Sinclair Hille principal David Quade (left) and senior associate Kjersten Tucker lead a tour of a new University of Nebraska-Lincoln music building on Dec. 16. With the new building’s design, the Lincoln architecture firm has sought to push the boundaries of what musical education looks like in higher education.
At the start of finals week at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, trumpet players and vocalists waited to give their final performances of the semester in the only space available.
The cold, cramped hallways of the Westbrook Music Building.
The three-story building near the southwest corner of City Campus has been the headquarters of numerous choirs, dozens of instrumental ensembles and thousands of music majors since it opened nearly seven decades ago.
But in recent years, as UNL opened new buildings for business and engineering students and overhauled other learning spaces on campus, the creativity and passion emerging from its outdated rehearsal halls and practice rooms was often in spite of Westbrook Music Building — not inspired by it.
That will soon change.
Next spring, UNL will open a modern music building at the corner of 10th and Q streets teeming with natural light, ample space for collaboration and innovation among artistic disciplines, and interwoven with cutting-edge technology unlike any other on a college campus.
The music building is among the projects benefiting from a 2021 law (LB384) enacted by the Legislature to increase state and university funds for deferred maintenance projects.
That summer, NU secured $400 million in municipal bonds — the largest in university history — to address an $800 million backlog of construction and renovation projects at its campuses in Lincoln, Omaha and Kearney.
The NU Board of Regents later approved a plan to use $78 million in bond financing and $3 million in private funds to replace the existing building, which was built, furnished and equipped in 1967 for $1.5 million in state tax dollars.
Felix Olschofka
Felix Olschofka
Felix Olschofka, the director of UNL’s Glenn Korff School of Music, said the facility built with support from state lawmakers and private donors “will inspire students and faculty to push the boundaries of music expression and creativity like never before.”
The design of the new building, developed by Lincoln-based architecture firm Sinclair Hille in partnership with BNIM of Kansas City, seeks to push the boundaries on what musical education looks like in higher education.
Eighty percent of the spaces inside the new facility will be exposed to natural light, including individual practice rooms where students spend hours and hours each school year.
“We really wanted to expose as many of the practice rooms as possible to natural light,” said Kjersten Tucker, a senior associate at Sinclair Hille, “which has a big impact on people’s mental health, physical health and just overall well-being.”
Similar to other newer buildings on UNL’s campus, such as Hawks Hall for the College of Business and Kiewit Hall for the College of Engineering, the new music building has large windows and glass doors that allow daylight in while also giving passersby a peek at the activity inside.
UNL music building construction, 12.16
The new University of Nebraska-Lincoln music building is seen under construction on Dec. 16 in Lincoln. Eighty percent of the spaces inside the new facility will be exposed to natural light, including individual practice rooms where students spend hours and hours each school year.
In the new music building, a vestibule on the northeast side will open from campus into a new student lounge area — something Westbrook Music Building doesn’t have — while windows on the southwest corner of the building look out onto a “porch” with views of downtown and the Haymarket.
Windows, both internal and external, also allow light into various levels of the three-story building, and ceilings with “butterfly folds” help amplify the brightness, the architects said.
While music buildings used to avoid windows in order to prevent sound from bleeding from one space to another, or from the outside into performance areas, modern construction has helped solve those issues, said David Quade, a principal at Sinclair Hille.
The external walls of the new building are 3 feet thick, bolstered with concrete and a sound shield meant to tamp down the noise from the on-ramp to Interstate 180 just a few feet away.
Inside, acoustic glass and special frame assemblies also help prevent outside sounds from coming in and inside sides from going out.
The building’s HVAC system was also specially designed to prevent sounds from bouncing through the air vents into rooms where they’re not wanted.
UNL music building construction, 12.16
The external walls of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln music building are 3 feet thick, bolstered with concrete and a sound shield meant to tamp down the noise from the on-ramp to Interstate 180 just a few feet away.
“All of those details are part of making sure that those acoustics stay within the space where they’re intended,” Quade said.
That won’t mean that the facility will be devoid of any sounds, Tucker added. The building was designed to let some music escape from practice and performance rooms into common areas; just not between those spaces.
Three stories of practice rooms opening up onto a hallway are meant to evoke an alley in a European city, she said, where music may be spilling out of homes into a public thoroughfares.
“It’s not like you’re going to walk through the space and not be able to hear any music,” Tucker said.
The music building also features three rehearsal spaces — one for large instrumental ensembles, one for choral ensembles, and a percussion/jazz space — as well as a state-of-the-art recital hall and a recording studio connected to each.
UNL music building construction, 12.16
A rehearsal hall inside the new University of Nebraska-Lincoln music building is seen under construction on Dec. 16. The new building will feature three rehearsal spaces — one for large instrumental ensembles, one for choral ensembles, and a percussion/jazz space — as well as a state-of-the-art recital hall and a recording studio connected to each.
Quade said each of the spaces is “tunable,” that is, able to be adjusted to better reflect or absorb sound based on the needs of the performers.
In the largest rehearsal space, for example, a 50-foot tall room meant to accommodate the Cornhusker Marching Band, acoustic “clouds” suspended from the ceiling help absorb sound along with banners mounted to the wall that can be adjusted with the push of a button.
Quade said each of the rooms also has features like custom-designed panels and walls slightly angled away from 90 degrees help reflect sound to fill the space.
UNL music building construction, 12.16
Sound treatment panels at a rehearsal hall at a new University of Nebraska-Lincoln music building are seen during a tour on Dec. 16.
“In every room, we have at least two walls that have a batter to them — they’re not straight up and down,” Quade explained. “They are acoustically specific to the space in an effort to take that sound within the room and push it up and out.”
The most dynamic space of the new facility, according to the architects, is a 190-seat room that doubles as both a traditional recital hall as well as a “sonic playground” equipped with audio and visual equipment to create an immersive experience.
While it can be used for traditional recitals, movable speakers and acoustic reflectors and absorbers, a projection screen and high-speed internet connectivity create the opportunity for students and faculty to play with sounds and performance in new ways.
Olschofka said the Glenn Korff School of Music faculty believes the sonic playground — which architects said is unlike any other space used in higher education — will sow the seeds for collaboration among various departments at UNL, as well as between UNL and performers around the world.
“In addition to traditional chamber music performances in the immersive performance hall, I envision an innovative chamber arts series where guest artists from various disciplines — music, dance, art, theater and emerging media arts — come together to create groundbreaking, interdisciplinary performances and research projects,” he said.
Those kinds of opportunities will help inspire a new generation of students, Olschofka said, who have felt limited by their environment.
One student told Sinclair Hille they wanted “something that shows the building is filled with expressive, vibrant people who are living their passion rather than drifting listlessly through a sterile, drab building that drains their creativity.”
Olschofka said once students are welcomed into the music building for the 2025-26 school year, they’ll find a facility to meet their passion.
“We’re going to have more capabilities and no creative limitations.”
UNL music building construction, 12.16
A hallway area at the new University of Nebraska-Lincoln music building is seen under construction on Dec. 16.
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