Inspiration

Design Considerations: The Art Center needed to expand, to have additional classroom space, galleries, a main exhibition/lecture hall, and parking. The old building was set back on what was this small triangular site with limited space.

Design Approach:

This competition entry responded to the Art Center’s request by taking the position that the art and the artists would benefit from a varied environment, but one based upon the existing center’s site. We looked to land art visionaries Michael Heiser, Walter de Maria and Nancy Holt for inspiration on spaces for art that are also art, that bring in light and inspire.

The relatively flat contours of the existing plane is peeled up and down and clad in wood of the same dimensions as the existing building’s clapboard. Glass and solid white surfaces are inserted inside of this plane to form volumes. The triangular shape of the site and the variation of the contours create a variety of spaces