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Alice Dodge Wallace '38 Center for the Performing Arts
Alice Dodge Wallace '38 Center for the Performing Arts
Troy, NY, United States
Special Mention, 2026 A+Awards, Concepts - Architecture +Context
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Other Projects by Annum Architects (formerly Ann Beha Architects)
Alice Dodge Wallace '38 Center for the Performing Arts
Troy, NY, United States
Special Mention, 2026 A+Awards, Concepts - Architecture +Context
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2025
SIZE
25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft
BUDGET
$10M - 50M
Designed in collaboration with Ann Beha, FAIA
The Alice Dodge Wallace ’38 Center for the Performing Arts places community and performing arts at the heart of campus. Founded in 1814, Emma Willard School in Troy, NY is a national leader in education for young women. Its rolling landscape, with views of the Berkshire mountains, integrates landmark structures with contemporary architecture.
The design transforms a 1910 gymnasium – later the school chapel – for rehearsal, instruction, and performance. Its connected arts extension is set deep in new landscape with no new campus footprint. The composition engages old and new, and confirms curricular commitment to creativity, sustainability, and legacy.
Revisioning the chapel, the 500-seat performance hall renews original architectural details, optimizing the full building volume to accommodate tiered seating, sightlines, and acoustics. Preservation initiatives include a new slate roof, stone restoration, and leaded-glass window reconstruction. The floor removal provides volume for stage fly, sightlines, and acoustics, preserving the historic roofline. The arts wing’s “planted and pleated” roof provides a new open space, its angles opening clerestories to illuminate studios below.
Adapting structure, envelope, and site in service to curriculum and community, the project interfaces preservation and contemporary design with sustainability and performance. Core sustainability approaches are expressed through adaptive reuse, which reduces embodied carbon, and siting the arts wing below grade, which lowers operational energy use by leveraging thermal mass. The green roof’s continuity with adjacent lawns and native pollinator gardens mitigates the heat island effect while inviting informal use and preserving campus greenspace.
Emma Willard School is proud of placing the arts at its core, and it is equally committed to an enduring setting that promotes inclusion and connection. The Wallace Center engages its community of parents, students, and faculty to a setting of heritage and innovation, where old and new intersect, and the arts create common ground.
The Alice Dodge Wallace ’38 Center for the Performing Arts places community and performing arts at the heart of campus. Founded in 1814, Emma Willard School in Troy, NY is a national leader in education for young women. Its rolling landscape, with views of the Berkshire mountains, integrates landmark structures with contemporary architecture.
The design transforms a 1910 gymnasium – later the school chapel – for rehearsal, instruction, and performance. Its connected arts extension is set deep in new landscape with no new campus footprint. The composition engages old and new, and confirms curricular commitment to creativity, sustainability, and legacy.
Revisioning the chapel, the 500-seat performance hall renews original architectural details, optimizing the full building volume to accommodate tiered seating, sightlines, and acoustics. Preservation initiatives include a new slate roof, stone restoration, and leaded-glass window reconstruction. The floor removal provides volume for stage fly, sightlines, and acoustics, preserving the historic roofline. The arts wing’s “planted and pleated” roof provides a new open space, its angles opening clerestories to illuminate studios below.
Adapting structure, envelope, and site in service to curriculum and community, the project interfaces preservation and contemporary design with sustainability and performance. Core sustainability approaches are expressed through adaptive reuse, which reduces embodied carbon, and siting the arts wing below grade, which lowers operational energy use by leveraging thermal mass. The green roof’s continuity with adjacent lawns and native pollinator gardens mitigates the heat island effect while inviting informal use and preserving campus greenspace.
Emma Willard School is proud of placing the arts at its core, and it is equally committed to an enduring setting that promotes inclusion and connection. The Wallace Center engages its community of parents, students, and faculty to a setting of heritage and innovation, where old and new intersect, and the arts create common ground.
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