Cohen Hall for The Integrative Creative Arts

The University acquired the Elihu B. Taft School from the City of Burlington in 2016 and began a comprehensive transformation of the building to turn the former elementary school turned charter school into a university quality space for the education of digital arts, film and television, dance, studio art and other general purpose education classes. The mission of the project was to create a space where the usually separate art departments can co-mingle and expose those not ordinarily exposed to the arts. The primary transformation was completed in the fall of 2018. A sprung dance floor was installed in the dance studio that Winter and the former gym was fully renovated into a white box theater for collaborative performances by the dance, music, digital, film & television, and studio art departments.

At that time a seminar space was renovated to provide a Collision Lab for the collaboration between students of different programs to meet and create new art. Another classroom was also renovated into a hybrid classroom for learning skills requried to plan, execute, refine, and create technologically oriented art both in-and-out of the computer.

The exterior of the building was also rehabilitated. Masonry, carpentry, metal and slate roofing, and stone resetting work was performed to catch up on prior deferred maintenance. All the windows were removed, restored, and reinstalled to preserve the historic character of the building that was important to the project donors.

Scott + Partners led the project from programming of the spaces with multiple departments and colleges at UVM, through the design and construction phases of the project.

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Read more: https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/uvm-opens-michele-and-martin-cohen-hall-integrative-creative-arts