Boora Architects

In the late 1990s, Scripps College acquired a building known since the mid-1960s as the Garrison Theater of the Claremont Colleges.  The main playhouse for this cluster of liberal arts colleges east of Los Angeles, the Garrison Theater's original design recalled a Greek temple -- heroic in scale, and fully opaque with its interior spaces disconnected from its exterior spaces -- though rendered in a Modernist character of the mid-20th century. Scripps College needed to adapt the building from a venue for dramatic performance to a hall for symphonic music, dance, and convocation, with added rehearsal space, studio space, seminar rooms, and a music library.

To accommodate the music education spaces called for, new construction would be needed to supplement the existing theater, which could be adapted into the new music venue but would not offer enough space for the library, studios, seminar rooms, and rehearsal space. In planning the site for the new music complex, Boora looked to the existing Scripps campus, characterized by a Mediterranean system of open-air courtyards at the center of its buildings, linked to each other by outdoor walkways.  For this reason, the design team's plan for the new music complex positioned the new buildlings in such as way as to create an outdoor space at the center of the complex, respecting the campus fabric while giving the department of music its own hearth.

The design of the new buildings limits their height, so that they defer to the heroic scale of the existing theater building and allowit to remain the anchor for the complex. The music library and 110-seat rehearsal room are placed on the two most prominent corners of the site, balancing each other in the building’s south elevation. Tempered by external sunshades that limit overheating and glare, their extensive glazing permits the activities inside to transmit to the surrounding environment. Where the new construction requires an opaque treatment, a brick matching that of Garrison Theater’s existing skin has been utilized, updating the rusticated banding of the existing load-bearing wall with subtle shifts of surface pattern.

Within the existing theater, targeted modifications to the performance space allow the facility to evolve from a single-use venue into a multi-purpose performance hall. In order to achieve the acoustical environment necessary to support orchestral works while staying within the existing building envelope (mandated by the modest budget), the ceiling of the hall was opened, exposing the structure's trusses and.  This added height in the audience chamber boosted the room’s reverberation time, making it more suitable for symphonic performance using natural acoustics. Other acoustical improvements include an extended forestage, a new portable acoustical shell, and new diffusive wall panels.

in addition the serving as the main venue for music performance on the Scripps College campus, the peroformance space also hosts convocations and lectures.

The back-of-house spaces that previously accommodated the theater's scene shop were adaptively re-used into seminar rooms.

New studios for music faculty are located behind the library.  They are accessed via the new courtyard at the heart of the complex.