|
Trumbull-Nelson brings
Proctor
Academy’s Music and Instrument
Building to Life.
by jack degange
photographs by rich frutcheya
THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES at Proctor Academy are as
diverse as those at any other prep school in the
United States. With help from Trumbull-Nelson, the
school has added to this diversity with the
construction of a state-of-the-art “Music Instrument
Building.”
This new facility gives students a resource for
advanced sound recording and music instruction that
is unrivaled in prep school circles, not to mention
most college campuses. Considering the 158-year-old
school has long been known for its beautiful
3,000-acre campus and facilities (which includes a
private ski mountain), this comes as no surprise.
“The new music building demonstrates Proctor’s
commitment to matching facilities with the abilities
and interests of our students,” said Mike Henriques,
the Head of School. “We emphasize the arts and
believe they pull the community together and give
students the opportunity to grow intellectually. The
building benefits the campus community but also
draws the school into the larger, surrounding
community.”
On the outside, the Music Instrument Building looks
like one of the many restored white clapboard
buildings that dot the campus, but the inside is one
of a kind and represents the latest chapter in
Proctor’s mission as a leader in non-traditional
education.
The building was designed by Jack Piercy, an
internationally renowned acoustical engineer based
in New London, New Hampshire. A leader in his field,
Piercy’s designs are astoundingly intricate.
“Everything is designed to eliminate vibrations,”
said Paul Tremblay, the project superintendent for
Trumbull-Nelson, who coordinated and oversaw the
entire project from the ground up. “It’s quite
literally a building-within-a-building,” he
continued. “There’s an exterior wall, then a
two-inch air space, and then an inner wall, all with
special sound insulation materials. The walls are
over 14 inches thick. The roof is a similar system.”
The 2,900-square-foot building’s first floor
includes four rooms: a large studio with a cathedral
ceiling; a cutting-edge control room; a small
isolation studio; and an office for Bill Wightman,
Proctor’s director of instrumental music. The floor
is set on two-by-fours mounted in thick U-boat floor
floats that eliminate vibration. On the lower level
there is a large room for groups and a mechanical
room. To say that there are only two rooms on the
lower level, however, would be deceiving, because
that isn’t always the case: Within the building
there are four portable, individual practice rooms
that can be set up within the larger room.
Precision Design
Piercy’s design is subtle and sophisticated.
Suspended from the cathedral ceiling of the main
studio is a quadratic resonance diffuser (QRD),
which controls sound perfectly. Barely noticeable in
this rectangular QRD: the center set of baffles
(which controls sound waves) is canted down at a
five-degree angle while the perimeter panels are
positioned at a six-degree up angle. A large,
triple-pane window permits viewing between the
studio and the control room. Each pane had to be
installed at a specified angle. The fabric panels
that cover the walls and ceiling of the control room
also required insertion at specific angles.
Among the unique classes
offered at Proctor Academy is a class that takes
place on a boat from Maine to the Caribbean, a class
set in the mountains of the American West, and
classes in Spain, France, and Costa Rica.
Installing Piercy’s complex acoustical design was a
challenge for the Trumbull-Nelson construction team,
because there was no room for error. Noted Tremblay,
“Every acoustical treatment has been designed,
engineered, and installed with a single purpose: the
precise management of sound.”
Doug Windsor, a Proctor Academy graduate—who is now
a Proctor trustee and chair of the building
committee—led Proctor’s workforce and served as the
working link to Trumbull-Nelson. Windsor describes
his tenure at Proctor as a student as “a
life-changing experience.”
Proctor Academy has an historic commitment to a
curriculum that extends beyond the normal college
preparatory subjects—a curriculum that addresses the
many interests of its diverse student body. It’s a
school that blends courses in English, History,
Geometry, and Astronomy with Boatbuilding, Precision
Machining, Dance, and Theater. As stated by Windsor,
“Hands-on learning is at the heart of this school.”
There’s always something new at Proctor, which was
built on the motto, “Learn to live, live to learn.”
And the Music Instrument Building, the building
within a building, is the latest chapter in the
evolving story of Proctor’s mission.
When it comes to sound sensitive, double-wall
construction and installation of a quadratic
resonance diffuser, it’s been a “first” for Paul
Tremblay and Trumbull-Nelson, too. |
