Concordia International School (Shanghai, China) has grown since its inception in 1998 with 22 students to an enrollment of more than 1,000 pre-school through high school students. On December 4, 2007, the school dedicated its 24,000 square foot David F. Rittmann Fine Arts Center.

The Center is built around a 450 seat theater with an orchestra pit and mezzanine/balcony levels. It also houses purpose-built drama, music, and art rooms, and a rooftop garden for outdoor events. JaffeHolden’s Russ Cooper, Carlos Rivera (architectural acoustics), and Mark Turpin (electrical acoustics) provided consulting services for theater architectural acoustics and for the performance audio system.

"The theater stage house is configured in wood panels," says Cooper, "and the proscenium wall is on a hinge so that in music mode, the room is a concert hall both visually and acoustically." In this setting, the room is reflective and reverberant. "In theater mode, the hinged panels form the proscenium opening and curtains and flats are used in the stage for the presentation. Adjustable curtains in the hall are drawn to lower the reverberation time."

JaffeHolden collaborated on the project with Perkins Eastman Architects (Stamford, CT office) and Theatre Projects Consultants of South Norwalk, CT (with offices in the United Kingdom and Singapore).