Principal Matthew Lella and Senior Associate Mike Lukasik sit down to discuss how their experiences of West Texas’ landscape and community shaped the design of Buddy Holly Hall.

Driving around Lubbock, Texas was hugely important to the design process. The power of the horizon line can be found everywhere in the building. The team looked to both the simplicity and power of the shapes in the landscape and the colour and subtlety of texture. 

In this particular project, it was about getting to know the Texans and more importantly, understand how they work and the speed in which they work. Texas time is slower and deeper. The design came to fruition because the team had time and space, which is the gift of Texas.

While, Senior Associate Cynthia Carbonneau and Associate Mehdi Ghiyaei reflect on how the team responded to designing a performing arts centre within the unique locale of Lubbock.

When you’re designing a performance space like Buddy Holly Hall, you need to be very close to accuracy. The geometry is key because you’re essentially designing and building an instrument that all of the other instruments are meant to work in harmony with.

The Hall was really shaped by the project team’s diverse skill set and insights. They employed the tools and techniques that Diamond Schmitt has developed and applied them to achieve the design the team was after —  a truly distinctive piece of architecture that is the result of in depth collaboration has become a cultural destination within the desert plains.