Mark Cavagnero Associates Architects

    • Projects
    • Community School of Music & Arts at Finn Center
    Building Exterior
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    Classroom
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    Interior Courtyard
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    Courtyard
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    Exterior Landscape
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    Exterior Facade
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    Lobby
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    Recital Hall
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    Recital Hall
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    Aerial Photography
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    Aerial Photography
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    Site Plan
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    Floor Plan
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    Floor Plan
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    Elevation + Section
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    Elevation + Section
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    • Photography
    • Site
    • Drawings

    Community School of Music & Arts at Finn Center

    Status

    Completed, 2004

    Size

    25,000 SF

    Client

    Community School of Music and Arts

    Scope

    Design

    Project Team

    Mark Cavagnero
    John Fung
    Roslyn Cole
    Jasmine Chu

    Project Collaborators

    MEP: C&B Consulting
    Structural: Murphy Burr Curry, Inc.
    Civil: Sandis Humber Jones
    Landscape: Stephen Wheeler Land Archs.
    Theater: Adam Shalleck while with Auerbach & Associates
    Lighting: Architecture and Light
    Acoustics: Charles Salter Associates

    Description

    Built to be a state-of-the-art education facility, this building is the first permanent home of the Community School of Music and Arts, a 35-year-old non-profit organization in Mountain View, California.  In addition to housing music classrooms and private music studios, the building provides visual arts studios, administration space, a recital hall and an outdoor performance space. 

    As the site for the school is surrounded by busy arterial roadways, the building is organized around a central courtyard, which allows the mass of the building to buffer the courtyard from the surrounding traffic noises while lending light and organizational clarity to the school. With an intimacy of scale from the low surrounding edges, this quiet courtyard provides an exterior performance space as well as an informal gathering space for students or waiting parents during the school hours. 

    The building itself is designed to provide the best possible spaces for the practice and performance of music. The facility was designed as a cast-in-place concrete building to provide the mass required for good acoustic isolation, both between rooms and to the exterior. The classrooms and the recital hall have strong shed roof forms, which have been designed integrally to provide the ideal acoustic performance. The concrete has been meticulously detailed to provide a sense of architectural character. To complement the strength of the concrete, lightly stained wood siding is used as the concrete frame infill material. Glass clerestories allow for balanced light and distant views. 

    With its strong architectural character, the building provides a sense of monumentality, lending the school as well as the arts programming a larger sense of importance and permanence within the region.

    Location

    Recognition

    Awards

    Chicago Athenaeum Museum, International Architecture Award, 2008
    Chicago Athenaeum Museum, American Architecture Award, 2006
    BusinessWeek / Architectural, Record Award, 2004
    AIA California Council, Honor Award, 2004
    AIA San Francisco, Excellence in Design Award, 2004

    Publications

    Business Week, November 22, 2004
    Architectural Record, March 2004
    Contract Magazine, February 2005
    California Home + Design, Mar 2005
    Umran Magazine, June 2005
    Archiworld, August 2004
    arcCA, March 2004
    Inhabitat, September 17, 2012
    San Francisco Chronicle Mag, Apr 2004
    San Jose Mercury News, March 2004
    Construction Specifier, January 2009