Hastings Architecture
Practice
Portfolio
Hastings Architecture

Architecture, Interior Design, Planning, and Sustainability

Next Project

Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center
Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_02

This Fine Arts Center establishes a new front door to Christ Presbyterian Academy’s campus, greeting students, families, and visitors alike. As part of a larger Master Plan, the Fine Arts Center is positioned to enclose and define a new central quad — the long-awaited heart of the campus.

Christ Presbyterian Academy is a private co-educational college-preparatory school for grades pre-school through twelve and is situated on a 58-acre campus in Nashville, Tennessee. HASTINGS’ campus-wide master plan intentionally orients the new Arts Center to establish a central outdoor quad, thus transforming from an automotive-centered campus to one that embraces the human scale and celebrates the school’s idyllic setting. Since its founding in 1982, the campus, which grew without an overarching style or aesthetic, is now united around the central quad with the formerly disparate façades of the campus now speaking in harmony with a new color palette.

Through the transparent façade, the lobby blurs the line between indoors and out with natural materials and abundant natural light, inviting curiosity and wonder through both the grand scale of the space and its sculptural gestures. The theatre auditorium echoes the gentle curves found in the lobby representing the creative expression fostered within the building and standing in contrast to the Arts Center’s orthogonal brick massing. An expansive light monitor diffuses light throughout the lobby and furthers the connection between indoors and out.

The program includes a 550-seat theatre, black box theatre, makeup and dressing rooms, a costume shop, scene shop, green room, Administrative, and Arts Department offices.

Academy of Fine Arts Center performance space
Fine Arts Center performance stage
Fine Arts Center performance stage
Fine Arts Center performance stage section
Fine Arts Center performance stage
Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_19

Like the program it houses, the Fine Arts Center is bright and inspired. Brick massing wraps the building base and references existing campus scale and materiality. An undulating corrugated metal panel, evocative of the stage curtain, sheaths the theater house and fly tower. At the main entry the brick mass opens up to reveal a transparent lobby capped with a wooden canopy — a welcoming gesture for students and visitors. The glazing pattern – an interpretation of the Academy’s tartan pattern – introduces a contemporary vocabulary unique to this campus.

At night, The Fine Arts Center and its large planes of glass become a welcoming beacon on the quad. Both form and program work in tandem to create a contextual response that elevates the campus and inspires creativity and art.

Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_06
Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_09
Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_16
Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_14
Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_13
Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_01
Christ Presbyterian Academy Fine Arts Center_04
Location
Nashville, Tennessee
Size
45,000 square feet
Client
Christ Presbyterian Academy
Recognition
AIA Middle Tennessee Honor Award
Photographer
Steve Hall © Hall + Merrick Photographers
Practice
About
Careers
News & Ideas
People
Recognition
Portfolio
Academic
Cultural + Civic
Hospitality + Mixed-Use
Residential
Workplace
Planning