Schenectady County Community College School of Music

Schenectady, New York

The Schenectady County Community College School of Music was designed to provide a first class environment for learning while also creating a new gateway and entrance for the Community College. The new building faces Route 5 and greets all who enter Schenectady from this direction. The surrounding campus landscape is designed to complement the strikingly contemporary architecture of the building, giving the campus a vibrant new face-lift. The design includes a small plaza and seatwall near the main entry, grids of plants with contrasting heights and textures that mimic the pattern created by the curtain wall, and a wildflower meadow creates a striking contrast while also stabilizing the hillside in a way that requires minimal maintenance. The hillside is also populated with aspens which are intended to celebrate the art of music making through the quivering sounds they make when the wind blows.