Program Summary:
Furthering the dream of its namesake, W.O. Smith, an abandoned tire warehouse and retail store is transformed into a community school of music for disadvantaged children.

Program Statement:
The W.O. Smith Nashville Community Music School is a private, non-profit school of music serving disadvantaged children. The all volunteer teaching staff offers music lessons for fifty cents a session to more than 400 children a week. After operating out of two 1,200 square foot houses for many years, the board of directors determined to move the school from that location to a more expansive facility that could serve as an icon for the lives that are transformed there. The school required a space more conducive to teaching, nurturing, and inspiring children. The challenge was to transform an existing tire warehouse and retail store on a prominent urban street corner into the Owner’s desire for a “Magical, Musical, Community School”.

The existing suburban style building had a management office and sales lobby along Eighth Avenue that was removed allowing for a new Entry Hall to address this busy arterial in a more appropriate urban manner. This new space houses the multitude of children and families that descend upon the school each afternoon, as well as concert goers for the Performance Hall. The existing tire warehouse portion of the building was transformed into a Rehearsal and Performance Hall seating 200 (with potential retail space or expansion space behind) and twelve Instruction Studios at its perimeter. The former service bays along Edgehill Avenue, where tires were once installed on vehicles, were converted to Music Labs. The rhythm of the service bays remain on the exterior, now with articulated windows and sunscreens. The focal point of the facility is the Music Library that is sited prominently on the corner, addressing both streets.

Creating a sophisticated and inspiring, fun place to learn, utilizing lasting yet common materials in a timeless way was the concept of the design. Enclosing the Entry Hall with glass fills the space with natural light and allows the community to view the activity within. Dark wood columns sit on polished concrete floors supporting the voluminous ceiling above. Light birch wood benches along the front façade serve as book/instrument compartments and are opposed by birch wood entry portals that punctuate the charcoal brick wall of the Performance Hall. This glass enclosed space unites the Performance Hall, the grey block enclosing the support spaces, and the “W.O. Smith Red” stucco of the Library. Each of these exterior materials extends to the interior creating a unique, low-maintenance enclosure. The Library houses sheet music, recorded music, the reading collection of the school’s namesake, and computers to connect the school to the world. The Music Studios and Labs create a playful rhythm of colorful spaces along corridors that serve as galleries for art. The wood and acoustical paneled walls and the floating ceiling planes of the Performance Hall are formed to maximize acoustics. Although LEED accreditation was not pursued, the project encompasses many sustainable qualities and features.

Elements of music are abstracted throughout the design. The horizontal bands across the Eighth Avenue façade allude to stringed instruments or a musical staff, while the suspended light globes within playfully become the notes. A vertical stanchion (which was not built – see model) was designed to be placed adjacent to the strings to emulate the bow of a violin or bass. The tapered cylindrical library takes on the form of a drum and abstracted piano keys form the windows within the Administration space. Rhythms of forms march throughout the school whether it is the portals at the entries to the Performance Hall, the alliteration of doors to the Studios, or the colorful cubes defining the Music Laboratory entries. All combine to convey the creative, life-changing magic of this unique school.

The new home of WO Smith Community Music School opened for the fall semester 2008. In its young life, the building has truly become a community center being utilized for special performances, corporate retreats, receptions as well as art shows and exhibits, the proceeds of which offset the school’s operating expenses. Observing the children, their families and instructors utilizing the spaces as envisioned, confirms that this architecture is truly an instrument in transforming lives and inspiring young people.