Olson Kundig Architects has extended a Washington art museum, adding a facade of movable hand-wheel operated screens to shield the artworks from all-natural light .
Seattle-based Olson Kundig was hired to develop a new wing for the Tacoma Art Museum to accommodate an substantial collection of Western American art, in addition to renovating existing spaces.
The Tacoma museum has been housed within a glass- and steel-clad box designed by US architect Antoine Predock because 2003.
“Architecturally, the problems grew to become opportunities,” stated company co-founder Tom Kundig, who led the venture. “It was an chance to create new venues to see art.”
Connected story: I layout goods “sort of like Frankenstein” says Tom Kundig
The 7,000-square-foot (650-square-metre), low-slung addition stretches along a main road and is connected to the older creating. A 34-foot-tall (ten-metre) canopy construction – produced of stainless steel panels and aluminium grating – straddles the two buildings and visually connects them.
The new wing’s west elevation, which faces the street, functions a series of movable screens that are operated by a hand wheel and “roll like railroad box automobiles across the facade,” explained the architect. Every display is 16 feet wide (4.eight metres) by 17 feet tall (five.1 metres).
The screens feature louvres manufactured of Richlite – a nearby materials that consists of recycled paper, fibre and resin. These minimise the volume of all-natural light getting into the galleries, in flip safeguarding the artwork. Within, the wing is divided into four rectilinear rooms with high ceilings.
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Called the Haub Loved ones Galleries, the new wing is named following the owner of the 300-piece assortment of Western American art.
The firm stated its design was inspired by the region’s industrial historical past, which contains logging, shipping and railroading. The city of Tacoma was as soon as the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad and played an essential function in the advancement of the American West.
“The creative use of industrial factors, an earthy palette of materials, and mechanical characteristics” enable the developing to reply to its context even though also assisting engage site visitors, stated the company.
Photograph by Kyle Johnson
The task, totalling 16,000 square feet (one,480 square metres), also entailed renovating components of the current museum, which includes the bookstore, cafe and restrooms.
A revamped entry lobby features a large window wall that provides views of Mount Rainier, one of the tallest mountains in America.
Sustainable characteristics include lower-movement plumbing fixtures and high-efficiency mechanical and lighting techniques.
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Finished in November 2014, the facility marks the very first museum project for Olson Kundig. The firm, founded in 1967, is very best recognized for its rugged, modern houses set in remote places, such as Studhorse and Rolling Huts.
In 2012, the firm launched a line of hardware merchandise designed by Kundig and fabricated in Seattle. The collection now consists of approximately 100 products, like door handles, cabinet pulls, and a fireplace poker and shovel.
Tom Kundig’s goods are created for his firm’s own tasks
In an interview about the products, Kundig advised Dezeen that he was not a natural product designer. “We almost certainly never method it like a solution designer would,” he stated.
“We appear at our merchandise line as a components keep, where you go in and take different pieces and components from different drawers and assemble them. It’s sort of like Frankenstein.”
Photography is by Benjamin Benschneider, unless of course specified otherwise.
