William Rawn Associates (WRA) shared last week a conceptual design for the Sarasota Orchestra Music Center, located at 5701 Fruitville Road. WRA was named project architect last November. The music center will deliver a 1,800-seat main performance hall, a 700-seat flexible space for chamber music and special events, multiple rehearsal rooms, a reception area, and administrative offices. OJB is landscape architect for the 32-acre, $14 million site Sarasota Orchestra recently purchased. The single visual from WRA shows an off-white horizontal building defined by an expansive, cantilevered roof plane with a circle aperture toward the middle. This plane is punctured by a large volume which rises up from the ground plane. In a statement the firm, said the building’s design is still very much in the works, however. “A sculptor working in bronze does not simply pour metal into a mold. They begin with clay. In much the same way, we are currently in the ‘clay stage’ of this process, where the forms are starting to take shape, the scale is becoming clearer and more layers of detail are emerging,” Douglas Johnston, WRA principal, shared in a statement. “While the Music Center design is not yet complete, a distinct sense of personality is beginning to take form,” added Cliff Gayley, WRA principal for design. Ample natural light is paramount to the Sarasota Orchestra Music Center’s design, WRA added. Educational spaces are placed to the east to ensure they have strong morning light, while the performance spaces will illuminate at night thanks to a glass facade. The design has an open-air courtyard with strategically placed shading to create a seamless connection between indoor and outdoor spaces. At the heart of the building will be the Florida Gulf Coast’s first concert hall purpose-built for acoustic music, the Sarasota Orchestra stated. This latest conceptual design will be modified in the coming months, as the architects engage the Sarasota Orchestra’s board of directors, musicians, staff and donors, as well as arts community partners and neighbors adjacent to the site. HKS is listed as the executive architect and Stages Consultants is the acoustician and theater planner. The WRA project will be built near the forthcoming Sarasota Performing Arts Center by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, another cultural building with numerous stage venues and an indoor-outdoor connection.