Old Town School of Folk Music, in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood, opened the doors to the school’s new arts education facility in January 2012. The 27,100-square-foot expansion, designed by VOA Associates, is located across the street from the organization’s primary home on Lincoln Avenue.
The expansion was necessary, as Old Town School of Folk Music has continued to experience tremendous growth since opening its Lincoln Square facility, a former Chicago Public Library, in 1998. Bulley & Andrews LLC, the project’s general contractor, completed the facility on a fast-paced, 14-month construction schedule.
The new performing arts education facility, located at 4543 N. Lincoln, offers space to meet the growing needs of the school’s students, faculty and staff.
The architectural detailing of the new building offers aesthetic touches. The masonry, cast stone and steel exterior on Lincoln Avenue relates to the architecture of the school’s art deco-era main building across the street. Three architectural precast concrete panels, located at street level, feature the word “music” in many languages and graphic expressions. Its multi-story entrance hall, called the building’s “front porch,” features large windows. The centerpiece of this space is a monumental steel and terrazzo staircase, with glass guardrail panels featuring portraits of folk music legends drawn by artist R. Crumb. The stair landings can be used as a stage for impromptu performances as well as circulation.
The building itself features 16 acoustically-engineered classrooms and three professional dance studios. The facility also boasts a 2,100-square-foot venue with 150 seats that acts as a classroom, community gathering space, dance hall and performance venue. The multi-purpose space is equipped with telescoping bleachers and built-in sound control equipment to support live music and dance as well as informal gatherings.
Like the multi-purpose venue, the three dance studios on the top floor are built with sprung floors. This construction technique, together with the building’s robust steel frame, prevents sound and vibration transmission between floors.
The construction team utilized building information modeling for MEP coordination. The modeling technique allowed the construction team to identify areas of possible conflict and work collaboratively during the preconstruction phase to eliminate conflicts before the team began construction on the jobsite.
