Center for the Arts on the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) campus

The University of Illinois at Chicago is seeking a professional services teams to design an architecturally significant Center for the Arts that serves as a gateway and bridge between UIC and the world, and as a destination for innovative arts and cultural production.

Vision
The Center for the Arts will be an architecturally significant building on Chicago’s Near West Side that serves as a gateway and bridge between UIC and the world, and as a destination for innovative arts and cultural production that performs and promotes UIC’s mission, "to create knowledge that transforms our views of the world and, through sharing and application, transforms the world."

As the new public face of UIC’s East Campus, and the College, this sustainable, mixed-use space will transform life for the community and for students on campus, fostering meaningful exchanges by serving as a hub for public performance, research and scholarship, teaching, and gathering. This place of artistic innovation and production will promote interchange and experimental collaborations between the arts and other disciplines such as health sciences, engineering, and urban planning, as well as provide a research site for experimenting with the most cutting edge architectural and design practices.

"This space will realize the vision of the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts to become the nation’s premiere college for education in the arts, design, and architecture. The UIC Center for the Arts will be a dynamic center—at the intersection of thinking and making—where new ideas are explored and manifest, and where each stage of the process of creative production is shared with the broader world."

Scope & Program
The AE team will include all architectural, engineering, and interior design services required to complete a state-of-the-art academic theatre and music building, including specialty consultants for acoustics, lighting, audio/visual, and theatre design. The University’s Climate Commitment requires that all new buildings achieve at minimum a LEED Gold rating. The project aims to provide radically accessible spaces for all users, including students, faculty, staff, and audiences. The program for the Center for the Arts comprises a building of approximately 88,000 gross square feet. The two primary performance spaces include a Vineyard Style Concert Hall for 500 people and a Flexible Main Stage Theatre for 270 people. Additional programs for Music include a large instrumental rehearsal hall and a large choral rehearsal hall, while additional programs for Theatre include production shops and two rehearsal spaces. Shared support spaces include a large lobby, box office, customer service offices, a donor lounge, and a small café/Jazz Club.