Harker School Performing Arts Center

San Jose, CA

The Harker School Performing Arts Center and Athletic Center together create a vibrant new gateway to the High School campus. The buildings, through the use of welcoming public spaces, daylighting, acoustic shaping, and natural materials, create warm, flexible, and intimately scaled communal spaces.

The Performing Arts Center, with its 60-foot theatrical fly system, acoustical excellence, and flexibility, provides spaces for students to learn, practice, and perform instrumental and vocal music, dance, theater, and technical production. The theater proscenium facing the audience features natural wood panels that glow with artfully integrated lighting. A thermally well-insulated envelope protects the auditorium from the noise of a nearby freeway, while the Athletic Center’s sawtooth roof supports a large photovoltaic power system oriented toward the sun—providing energy generation instrumental in achieving LEED Gold for both buildings.

Collaboration: Kevin Hart, Kevin Hart Architecture

Photography: Cesar Rubio Photography