That was the first thought of Christopher Ambridge, Associate principal at Cox Graae + Spack architects after the firm had just won an international competition to turn an old school in Washington DC into the new Duke Ellington School of the Arts building. The old building, listed on America's register of Historic Places and previously Western High School, has been modernised to house a new facility for the arts in memory of the pioneering American jazz bandleader and composer, Edward 'Duke' Ellington.

The architectural firm, facing stiff competition, realised at an early stage that turning the old warren of a building into a welcoming environment that nurtured the talents of its students required a deeper appreciation of who the students were, what their aspirations were and what sort of building would allow them to flourish. The design they settled on balances the old iconic features of the building, which they wanted to preserve, with an exciting open atrium behind the main façade, featuring the curved exterior of the main performance theatre and stage.

A cursory glance at the principal features of the design would probably have you echoing Christopher's initial sentiments, but more of that later. The focus of the school's ethos is just as interesting. Sandi Logan, the School's Principal, explained that the centre was created for "students who didn't typically have access to the arts." She added that when you enter the building you now hear music, see dancing, and that it just gives you a "sense of spirit." It is now a public school that takes kids at any academic level as long as they have a particular aptitude that they want to develop.

The Duke Ellington School had the funds to run the $100 million programme that they had in mind, but just didn't have a building that gave them the freedom they needed and that allowed them to create workshops, build studios and perform until the Western High School building became available.

Ronald Lee Newman, the Former Director of Operations for the school, echoed Sandi's remarks, pointing out multi-ethnic communities with their shared experiences of inequality and prejudice, wanted to create a focus for their aspirations and found it in the School of the Arts. Its location in the heart of the capital State of America was also significant. "As Global Ambassadors to the Arts in Washington," he said, "we decided to solicit firms worldwide to enter a design competition."

There were many presentations - some of them outstanding - but there was only one company that really captured "the essence of the people who are here." Chris Graae and his team did what every architect should do, namely "sit back and listen," he added.

Taking the building apart
Joanna Schmickel, a Principal at CGS, explained what that spirit was. "We spent time, experiencing people here," She explained how one of the principal features. "The theatre, the heart of it, sits in a box - and is part of the community."

Gabe Oliver, the Vice President at CGS explained the early steps that needed to be taken once the plans had been adopted. Having recently been renovated the placer had to be ripped apart, the gym turned into the dance studio and the auditorium become the performing arts centre. The building, beautiful as it was, didn't allow another storey to be added to it.

And building the dream…
Christopher explained how the project was tackled. He explained that he was familiar with Archicad, and had done some work with 3D elements, but had never used it as a BIM workflow. In this particular project though, and aware of the geometrical complexity of the what they were trying to achieve, the company decided to run the whole project as a BIM project on Archicad.

William Spack, the Founding Principal of CGS confirmed this, explaining that Archicad was a tool that provided the bridge between the roles of everybody on the project, using the 3D model to solve issues that otherwise would have taken months to work out.

For the theatre, for instance, the model was shared out to a steel detailer in Minneapolis enabling them to visualise what they were looking at, see what clearances there were and which they could work with, and incorporate all of the detailed components into the model. They provided the details but they didn't have to put the model together.

It was up to Christopher to know what the different parties were doing, and to put all the work back together again as a consolidated, accurate building model. "We created the steel model then sent it to the steel detailers who developed the fabrication model," he said. "This was returned to us in IFC format and we ported it into our model, showing each model in different colours, so that we could ensure that they fitted together perfectly, or whether there were clashes.

"Then we had to build it - with steel erectors who had previously worked in 2D and were unfamiliar with working with 3D fabrication models. The illustrations featured in this article show the complexity of the performing arts 'box'.

A little bit of history
An important feature of the design was the retention of some of the original features of the building, in order to create links with the past. This amounted to keeping some of the original windows and the use of the original textured brick wall. Behind the porticoed entrance, though, they had the freedom to design the area as a large feature in the centre of the atrium.

The central, modern part of the building was offset slightly from the older frontispiece, creating a slight sense of separation which added to its architectural integrity. The new shell of the theatre didn't quite touch the old part of the building, creating a tension that existed between the new and old. "We wanted visual and literal connectivity across the building," Christopher added. "The atrium was a device for that, you could look across the atrium and see the visual arts department, and you coud look through the windows at the students." This was echoed by Sandi Logan, who said, "The space really does make you feel connected, and piano sounds resonate through the whole building."

The excitement of the space was matched by the excitement the designers felt about the whole project. As Gabe said, "You can't go into the building and see, anywhere, anything that didn't require Herculean collaboration and coordination, and the list of things that are exciting or challenging you will find in every corner of the building. The rubber hit the road here."

Ronald Lee Newman has the final words. "There's something in this building that helps us push forward, seeping through the walls, in the air - they did a great job of capturing US!"

www.graphisoft.com