Conservatory Lab Charter School

Boston’s Conservatory Lab Charter School educates and empowers children from diverse backgrounds through a unique musical and arts-focused education. CLCS students, teachers and staff enrich the larger community through performance, service and collaboration. As a laboratory school, CLCS also develops and shares new educational approaches that will positively influence children in other schools and programs.

Arrowstreet designed a beautiful new Elementary/Upper School in Dorchester, which now accommodates 275 students in grades 3 through 8. The three-story building includes classrooms, a media center, gym, offices, music rehearsal rooms, and a multi-purpose cafeteria for concerts, after-school programs, and community events.

Alongside school representatives and the project design team, Acentech’s Studio A defined acoustical goals for music performance and rehearsal, community, and academic spaces. We provided design options and recommendations for room shaping and volumes, room finishes, sound isolation, and HVAC noise and vibration control. We also performed a community noise survey to ensure exterior noise compliance.

As a firm that is passionate about music and the arts (many on our staff teach music, play an instrument or design professional recording studios), we were pleased to have contributed our expertise to a school designed expressly for young musicians and future community leaders.

“The serenity that one discovers inside the Upper School is directly attributable to the thoughtful work that Acentech’s engineers invested into the design of the school. Partnering with an organization that is a part of the connective tissue of our signature building is extraordinarily meaningful for Conservatory Lab. Conservatory Lab’s flagship building was always conceived as a community asset and we are grateful that Acentech is partnering with us on this inaugural Opening Our Doors event to fulfill that promise.”

— Matt Chapuran, Executive Director of the Conservatory Lab Foundation.