Booker T Washington School for the Visual and Performing Arts is a nationally recognized Magnet School focusing on the Arts, located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas. The facility includes over 180,000 square feet of new construction with classrooms, art studios, rehearsal halls, a gallery, and theater space.

The fundamental architectural concept was a ‘factory for art’. Special MEP challenges in the facility included design for all systems to be fully exposed, with no ceilings in classrooms and no MEP exposed in corridors and the Atrium space. Sound attenuation was critical in performance and rehearsal spaces. IT interconnectivity was provided between the performance, rehearsal, and recording studio facilities to provide video and audio recording and transmission of performances from multiple diverse spaces.

The central, multi-level Atrium communicated through as many as 4 levels and presented a life safety challenge for smoke removal. A full Computational Fluid Dynamic analysis was performed to model the designed smoke removal system. The smoke removal system was then challenged with smoke bombs during final testing and performed very closely to the predictions from the model.

Also included was the restoration of the 20,000 SF original 1922 Historic Landmark building. The Historic Building was retrofitted with a Black Box Theater in the original auditorium space, and a Museum Gallery Space in the former cafeteria.