mixed use  : :  music therapy  : :  community arts

In this fourth year studio, we were given the subject of healthcare facility. With my personal experience of Lawrence, Kansas, I knew it to be an artsy town - a younger population that loves music and free-expression. Unfortunately there is no public stage. So the addition to the Lawrence Arts Center becomes a mixed-use structure comprised of music therapy, visual art therapy, and local retail in an attempt to make art and its therapeutic characteristics more accessible to the public.

The existing space is an unused lot next to the Arts Center, which is a large brick box with no windows. The addition essentially helps open up the existing structure and turns the lot into a public exhibition space. A theater facing an open-air gallery punctuated on the perimeter by local coffee shops and artisanal snack vendors facilitates the busy street life with immediate adjacency to Lawrence’s main artery, Massachusetts Street. Above, therapy rooms allow for reflection and healing through the exploration and discovery of one of the city’s favorite means of expression - music. Movement from room to room is permitted via glazed circulation that can be opened as a deck for more viewing room during larger theater performances. Beyond, on the more private side facing existing residences, visual stimulation and public response leads to art made for the city by the city on an open graffiti wall.

location  |  Lawrence, KS

type  |  Commercial Mixed Use

year  |  2008