Ware Malcomb announced construction is complete on the Barry-Hughes Performing Arts Center at Mount Carmel High School in Chicago. Ware Malcomb provided interior architecture and design services for the renovation of the 70-year-old brick and wood bow-truss building, located near Jackson Park in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood.
Mount Carmel High School is an all-boys Catholic high school established in 1900. In addition to its academic and athletic prowess, the school has distinguished alumni in the performing arts community, including Emmy—and Tony-award-winning actors. The latest in a series of campus renovations, the school’s Barry-Hughes Performing Arts Center project has transformed an underutilized campus building into a fully equipped modern performing arts, music, and recording studio facility.
The design team first established an essential spine, or circulation path for the space, and organized the building functions sequentially off the circulation by scale, with a focus on re-using as much existing infrastructure as possible. The design team centered their concept around a floating “jewel box” comprising several smaller rooms housed within the larger building space, including recording studios, a mixing suite, a podcast studio, and a music practice room.
The large open space within the performing arts center comprises a flexible theatre space that can accommodate audiences of up to 250 patrons. It can also be scaled for small assemblies, banquets, or alumni events, as well as smaller black-box productions or lectures. Ancillary uses in the performing arts center include a visual arts flex space, an art and pottery studio, study nooks, a student-run café with a full kitchen, restrooms, and storage spaces.
