Rice University’s new home for student art will be named Susan and Fayez Sarofim Hall, and it will be designed by a team helmed by an alumnus with a deep appreciation for the arts at Rice and in Houston. Charles Renfro will lead Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design team. DS+R was chosen for Sarofim Hall following a national competition. With architecture honoring the legacy of the former Rice Media Center and Art Barn, the new Sarofim Hall will be an inventive take on the prefabricated building, incorporating exhibition areas, labs, studios, shops, faculty offices and other facilities serving as collaboration points for artists across mediums.The building nods to the Art Barn and Media Center, which were commissioned by Houston arts patrons John and Dominique de Menil in 1969 when they founded the Institute for the Arts at Rice, with a dramatic advancement of the ubiquitous Butler building, the mass-produced, pre-engineered metal structures that became popular following World War II.The striking design for Sarofim Hall frees the steel frame from its skin, transforming a hermetic building into an extroverted mini-campus, welcoming students, faculty and the general public into its protected exterior spaces to engage with the arts at Rice. DS+R’s vision for Sarofim Hall also incorporates a glass-lined pedestrian ArtStreet that bisects the four-story structure and acts as a new entrance to the university, welcoming the public to witness what’s happening inside the new space. It will be situated adjacent to the Moody Center for the Arts and a short stroll from the Shepherd School for Music’s Alice Pratt Brown Hall and the newly constructed Brockman Hall for Opera, which seats 600 patrons.Before becoming a partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in 2004, Renfro graduated from Rice in 1989 and received his Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University in 1994. DS+R’s impressive international portfolio includes New York City’s High Line, the Shed, an expansion to the Museum of Modern Art and the renovation of Lincoln Center featuring an expansion of the Juilliard School.
Rice University’s new home for student art will be named Susan and Fayez Sarofim Hall, and it will be designed by a team helmed by an alumnus with a deep appreciation for the arts at Rice and in Houston. Charles Renfro will lead Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design team. DS+R was chosen for Sarofim Hall following a national competition. With architecture honoring the legacy of the former Rice Media Center and Art Barn, the new Sarofim Hall will be an inventive take on the prefabricated building, incorporating exhibition areas, labs, studios, shops, faculty offices and other facilities serving as collaboration points for artists across mediums.The building nods to the Art Barn and Media Center, which were commissioned by Houston arts patrons John and Dominique de Menil in 1969 when they founded the Institute for the Arts at Rice, with a dramatic advancement of the ubiquitous Butler building, the mass-produced, pre-engineered metal structures that became popular following World War II.The striking design for Sarofim Hall frees the steel frame from its skin, transforming a hermetic building into an extroverted mini-campus, welcoming students, faculty and the general public into its protected exterior spaces to engage with the arts at Rice. DS+R’s vision for Sarofim Hall also incorporates a glass-lined pedestrian ArtStreet that bisects the four-story structure and acts as a new entrance to the university, welcoming the public to witness what’s happening inside the new space. It will be situated adjacent to the Moody Center for the Arts and a short stroll from the Shepherd School for Music’s Alice Pratt Brown Hall and the newly constructed Brockman Hall for Opera, which seats 600 patrons.Before becoming a partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in 2004, Renfro graduated from Rice in 1989 and received his Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University in 1994. DS+R’s impressive international portfolio includes New York City’s High Line, the Shed, an expansion to the Museum of Modern Art and the renovation of Lincoln Center featuring an expansion of the Juilliard School.
