South Mountain Community College (SMCC) Performing Arts Center
Phoenix
Jones Studio, Inc.

Jones Studio created a glowing lantern within a rusted-steel envelope at South Mountain Community College’s new arts building

© Mark Boisclair

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By Ingrid Spencer

Explosive growth in Phoenix has brought funds to strengthen Maricopa County’s 10 community colleges. Still, sharing available resources with the other schools meant South Mountain Community College (SMCC) had no more than $7 million to construct its building. Phoenix-based Jones Studio, known for its careful and precise Modern residences, had never designed a performing-arts center. The 24,600-square-foot performance center required a 350-seat theater complete with orchestra pit, a 100-seat black-box theater, studios for dance and recording, as well as back-of-house spaces and classrooms.

Following the existing campus courtyard plan, the architect divided the new center’s elements into three major building volumes. A metal trellis shades the one-story classroom wing of sandblasted concrete block. A 54-foot-high metal-clad box containing the performance hall fronts a low volume for back-of-house areas. The two structures form an L-shape framing a courtyard lined by existing art, music, and liberal-arts buildings to create a new arts quadrangle.

By wrapping the auditorium box with rusted-steel panels, Jones Studio made it the focus of the school’s new courtyard. The auditorium glows lanternlike at night, while during the day, the metal panels create dappled patterns of sun throughout the lobby. Inside, Jones Studio kept to humble, standard materials—inexpensive theater seating in black; sandblasted concrete floors—conserving the budget for one special touch: an undulating eucalyptus-clad inner shell. “We pictured the inside of a violin,” says Jones Studio principal Eddie Jones. “The outside case is harder and more distressed, but you open that case to reveal this precious instrument.”

The volume of the theater is larger than it appears. Above the wood walls and overhead catwalks, the space extends another 12 to 14 feet to the roof’s underside. When sound-absorbing draperies—closed for spoken-word events—are pulled away, this additional volume doubles the reverberation time, allowing the sound to bloom for song or unamplified instruments.

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Formal name of Project:
South Mountain Community College (SMCC) Performing Arts Center

Location:
Phoenix

Gross square footage:
33,000 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$57 Million

Owner:
Maricopa Community College District

Architect:
Jones Studio, Inc.
4450 North 12th Street, Suite 104
Phoenix, AZ 85014
Tel. 602-264-2941
Fax 602-264-3440
www.jonesstudioinc.com