Community School of Music and Arts, Finn Center
Mountain View, Calif.
Mark Cavagnero Associates

Music education and performance find a serene new setting

© Tim Griffith

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

The Center for Music and Arts Education is a 25,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art education facility. It will be the first permanent home of the Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA), a 35-year-old non-profit organization in Mountain View, Calif. 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.

Surrounded by busy arterial roadways, the building centers around a courtyard, which allows the mass of the structure to buffer traffic noise while infusing the school with more light and organizational clarity. With an intimacy of scale from the low edges on its perimeter, this quiet courtyard provides an exterior performance venue as well as an informal gathering space for students or waiting parents during school hours.

In the building itself, the architect sought to provide the best possible spaces for the practice and performance of music. Cast-in-place concrete created 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 for ideal acoustic performance. The concrete surface reveals meticulous detail, giving the spaces a sense of architectural character, complemented by lightly stained wood siding. Glass clerestories allow for balanced light and distant views.

With its strong yet thoughtful architectural presence, the building achieves a level of monumentality, lending the school as well as the arts programming a greater importance and permanence within the region.

Location:
Mountain View, Calif.

Gross square footage:
24,800 sq. ft. (building) – 3,000 sq. ft. (courtyards) – 71,300 sq. ft. (property)

Total construction cost:
$9 million

Owner:
Community School of Music and Arts

Architect:
Mark Cavagnero Associates
1045 Sansome Street, Suite 200
San Francisco, CA 94111
tel: 415.398.6944
fax: 415.398.6943
www.cavagnero.com