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Alice Pratt Brown Hall, center, is the home of Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. The new opera theater will stand between Brown Hall and the stadium.

Rice University has picked the New York architectural firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro to design an opera theater scheduled to open in 2018.

The 600-seat theater will stand in what now is a parking lot between Alice Pratt Brown Hall, the home of Rice'sShepherd School of Music, and Rice Stadium. Besides serving the school's Opera Department, the theater will be used for chamber music concerts and other events, Rice said.

Charles Renfro, a 1989 Rice graduate, will be the lead architect.

The theater's design and acoustics will be geared to students' needs, Shepherd School Dean Robert Yekovichsaid.

"Having a jewel-box theater primarily for the performance of opera will add more luster to Houston's impressive list of performance venues," he said.

Renfro said he was thrilled and humbled to lead the design project for his alma mater.

"This is kind of a triple homecoming for me personally," Renfro said. He came to Rice as a music major and studied clarinet, then returned to the school to study architecture. He taught as a visiting professor in 2006.

"It feels really natural in a lot of ways to be returning to campus, a place I've spent so much time and love so much," Renfro said.

Preliminary design work is scheduled to start in mid-April.

Fisher Dachs Associates, a New York firm, will help guide the theater's technical design. Threshold Acoustics of Chicago will also take part. Houston's Linbeck Group will be the general contractor.

> via chron.com