Project Description

Overview

Established by a grant from the Herb Alpert Foundation, The Herb Alpert School of Music on the UCLA campus is dedicated to providing students with academic opportunities that balance cutting-edge scholarship with sophisticated performance and composition mastery.  Students are immersed in a multitude of learning and performing opportunities and have access to world-class archives and related study options.  Upon the completion of renovations to UCLA’s Lani Hall performance venue within its Schoenberg Music Building, the school called upon WSDG again to revitalize its orchestral, band, choral, and ‘Monk’ rehearsal rooms.

Program

The WSDG Design Team was tasked with transforming UCLA’s existing rehearsal rooms to meet the same acoustic and technical standards developed for Lani Hall. Specifically, the school sought a cohesive look across the rooms but differing acoustic profiles to match their intended end users. 

Design

Each room has its own unique level of reverberation to suit the ensembles using it, ranging from a more controlled sounding room for the band to a highly reverberant room for choral singing. The team utilized stretched fabric acoustic panels for absorption. In addition to the wall paneling, additional absorbers were hung from the building structure through the ceilings and diagonally braced to meet seismic code standards. 

The team worked with Herb Alpert and UCLA Senior Architect Yuzo Yamaguchi to develop the aesthetic of the rooms, incorporating the carpets and maple and alder wood paneling of Lani Hall in the design. The end result is four peerless rehearsal spaces that will meet the needs of UCLA’s music students for decades to come.