New Music and Fine Arts Academy Building
New Music and Fine Arts Academy Building, Miscellaneous Renovations, and Site Improvements
Riverchase United Methodist Church | Hoover, Alabama
The new home of the Riverchase United Methodist Church Music and Fine Arts Academy, designed by Aho Architects, is a three-story building specifically designed to support music and arts in worship, among students, and throughout our community. The almost 14,200 square foot structure steps down the natural topography of the site and links, for the first time, all levels of parking and building floor levels on the campus, enhancing accessibility and site circulation.
Aho Architects has completed 16 projects for RUMC, some as stand-alone and some as multi-building campaigns.
Scope:
Academy Reception and Waiting Room
Offices (3)
Lesson Rooms (4-5)
Small Ensemble Rehearsal/Classroom
Large Choir/Orchestra rehearsal space
Music Library/Work Room
Robing
Gathering/Kitchenette
Restrooms
Flower Guild Workroom
Music Equipment and General Storage
Design Narrative: The facility also enables fully accessible circulation within the various levels of building (including the Sanctuary choir loft) and parking lots. Traffic flow between the choir loft and rehearsal space is much more direct and efficient. The addition of restrooms serves not only those involved in the music program, but also significantly benefits the congregation worshipping in the sanctuary. Also part of the project, the sanctuary building, and now the entire campus are fully-protected by an automatic fire sprinkler system and emergency egress is improved.
The design and esthetics of the building exterior are also carefully executed to harmonize with the rest of the campus, but not to upstage the sanctuary building and worship spaces. The materials, masonry detailing, cast stone decorative elements and arches, massing and geometry help to blend with the campus exterior esthetics and unified theme established in earlier building programs.
Interesting Fact: One of the new facility's most notable features is its "singing windows". The choir rehearsal space's windows depict one of the congregation's favorite hymns, "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee", set to the tune of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The hymn ends with the notes and lyrics "Joyful music leads us sunward, in the triumph song of life." The architecture becomes frozen music with the windows representing the pitch and duration of the musical notes. At various times of the year, they also allow sunlight into the space which features various other aspects of the design.
