On June 1, Palmer Museum of Art at Pennsylvania State University will open a 73,000-sf building with five acres of landscape within the University Park campus’ 370-acre Arboretum and adjacent to the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens.
The project, designed by the architect Allied Works and landscape architect Reed Hilderbrand, is one of the latest expressions of the museum design trend that blurs the lines separating indoor and outdoor spaces.
Also see: Teddy Roosevelt library aims to be one with nature.
For more than a decade, museum designers have been forging the connection between exhibit space and natural surroundings. The Milwaukee Public Museum recently broke ground on the largest cultural project in Wisconsin’s history, the five-story 200,000-sf Future Museum, codesigned by Ennead Architects and Kahler Slater, with construction by Mortenson and ALLCON scheduled to begin next month. The building’s design harkens to the region’s diverse landscapes formed by movements of water over time. The Future Museum, situated on 2.4 acres in Milwaukee’s Haymarket neighborhood, will include two gardens designed by GGN, located near the entrance and on a rooftop terrace, providing an opportunity to bring native plants into the city’s urban environment.
Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass., in March unveiled renderings for its first purpose-built art museum, which is scheduled to open in 2027. This three-story, 76,800-sf museum, designed by SO-IL, will consist of four program areas. A courtyard garden stands at the heart of this mass timber building. And views of the Berkshires’ landscape open from the central lobby toward the main entrances. Seating areas between the museum’s galleries offer view of the landscape, as does a lounge that unifies research space and classrooms. The landscape around the building will be reforested and renewed, with flowering meadows and gardens featuring native plants.
The Building Team for the Williams College Art Museum includes PDR (executive architect), Reed Hilderbrand (landscape architect), Fast + Epp (SE), Buro Happold (MEP), Fuss & O’Neil (CE), Thornton Tomasetti (sustainability consultant), Consigli (CM), Skanska (owner’s project manager), FMS (lighting designer), and SGH (envelope consultant).
Credit: Jeudi.Wang, courtesy SO–IL and the Williams College Museum of Art.
Like strolling through a garden
The design of Penn State’s new $85 million Palmer Museum of Art doubles the existing building’s footprint and includes 20 galleries, new educational and event spaces, a sculpture path, and outdoor terraces. Grasslands, gardens, and woodlands of the Arboretum inspired the museum’s design, too. Interlocking pavilions define six courtyards and create space for the terraces and gardens. An overhead bridge joins the museum’s two wings, and creates a gateway to the botanic gardens and nearby Pollinator and Bird Garden.
“As a lifelong gardener, the prospect of merging my two passions, art and landscape, was very exciting,” said Allied Works’ Principal Brad Cloepfil, in a prepared statement. “The Palmer Museum of Art’s new location invites you on a walkthrough of the gardens and galleries as the building moves over the site.”
Erin M. Coe, Palmer Museum of Art director, added that a visit to the museum “provides a remarkable opportunity to meander through spaces filled with works of art as though one were strolling through the landscape.”
Related Stories
| Jun 18, 2014
Arup uses 3D printing to fabricate one-of-a-kind structural steel components
The firm's research shows that 3D printing has the potential to reduce costs, cut waste, and slash the carbon footprint of the construction sector.
| Jun 16, 2014
6 U.S. cities at the forefront of innovation districts
A new Brookings Institution study records the emergence of “competitive places that are also cool spaces.”
| Jun 13, 2014
First look: BIG's spiraling museum for watchmaker Audemars Piguet
The glass-and-steel pavilion's spiral structure acts as a storytelling device for the company's history.
| Jun 12, 2014
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects' design selected for new UCSC facility
The planned site is a natural landscape among redwood trees with views over Monterey Bay, a site that the architects have called “one of the most beautiful they have ever worked on.”
| Jun 12, 2014
Austrian university develops 'inflatable' concrete dome method
Constructing a concrete dome is a costly process, but this may change soon. A team from the Vienna University of Technology has developed a method that allows concrete domes to form with the use of air and steel cables instead of expensive, timber supporting structures.
| Jun 11, 2014
David Adjaye’s housing project in Sugar Hill nears completion
A new development in New York's historic Sugar Hill district nears completion, designed to be an icon for the neighborhood's rich history.
| Jun 9, 2014
Green Building Initiative launches Green Globes for Sustainable Interiors program
The new program focuses exclusively on the sustainable design and construction of interior spaces in nonresidential buildings and can be pursued by both building owners and individual lessees of commercial spaces.
| Jun 9, 2014
Eli Broad museum files $19.8 million lawsuit over delays
The museum, meant to hold Eli and Edythe Borad's collection of contemporary art, is suing the German company Seele for what the museum describes as delays in the creation of building blocks for its façade.
| Jun 4, 2014
Want to design a Guggenheim? Foundation launches open competition for proposed Helsinki museum
This is the first time the Guggenheim Foundation has sought a design through an open competition. Anonymous submissions for stage one of the competition are due September 10, 2014.
| May 29, 2014
7 cost-effective ways to make U.S. infrastructure more resilient
Moving critical elements to higher ground and designing for longer lifespans are just some of the ways cities and governments can make infrastructure more resilient to natural disasters and climate change, writes Richard Cavallaro, President of Skanska USA Civil.
