The skirt of first-story glass now appears to be in place along the northern side of Rice University’s in-progress Moody Center for the Arts, per the shot above from Allyn West this week. The second photo, taken a few weeks before as part of a sunset set, shows the facade looking a little bit blue — the magnesium oxide coating covering the building’s exterior bricks picks up different colors in different light conditions, as Molly Glentzer notes, contrasting with the pinkish St. Joe bricks used throughout most of the rest of the campus (as demonstrated by the nearby Shepherd School, shown here peeking through the sculptural hole and pipeburst on the end of its new artsy neighbor).

The $30-million center should be done in February, according to last month’s announcements, and the building is starting to look a lot like the renderings released by Michael Maltzan Architecture: 

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Those renderings show a second, more modestly dressed pipe-burst feature at the opposing end of the structure:

The building is going up next to the rather shinier Rice Media Center building, on the University Blvd. edge of campus:

The opposite side of the building will face the planned spot for that Diller Scofidio + Renfro Allan Greenberg opera house that appears to be headed to campus. The inside of the building will include (among other things) wood and metal shops, a rapid prototyping space, a black-box theater, and a cafe, and is intended to host collaboration between artsy types and seemingly any other department that’s interested. Here are some more late-evening shots from a few weeks back:

• Rice University prepares to open Moody Center for the Arts [Houston Chronicle]
• Rice University Moody Center for the Arts [Michael Maltzan Architecture]

Images: Allyn West (top), Michael Maltzan Architecture (renderings), Swamplot inbox (remaining photos)