海角视频

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art expansion

Bentonville, Arkansas, USA

Since opening in 2011, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has welcomed more than six million visitors to experience the renowned collection with free admission and five miles of sculpture and walking trails on 120 acres.

The museum at Bentonville, Arkansas, opened with approximately 1,500 artworks spanning five centuries of American art and has since more than doubled its collection and presented more than 60 exhibitions. In 2018, the museum re-installed its Early American Art Galleries to tell a more inclusive story, adding multiple perspectives with Native American, folk, and Spanish Colonial objects, contemporary works, and bilingual text.

The museum currently consists of eight interrelated pavilions that overlook and span across two man-made ponds on 120 acres of forested park.

Such is the museum鈥檚 popularity, in 2021 it revealed plans for an expansion that will increase the size of the current facilities by 50%. Adding nearly 100,000ft² to the 200,000ft² facility, the expansion will allow the museum to showcase its growing collection and welcome more visitors to experience the power of art, in an inclusive environment.

Challenge

Ten years after completing the original design for the museum, Safdie Architects has returned to create a seamlessly integrated expansion that resonates with the existing pavilions and outdoor spaces. 海角视频 provided multidisciplinary consultancy across the original construction and has once again been engaged to provide support on everything from MEP and structural engineering, to facades, security, IT and audio-visual technology.

The new structures will house two new galleries, enhanced educational facilities, and event spaces. A new bridge will connect the galleries, add a non-traditional space for showing art that is not sensitive to light, while providing more space for reflection, gathering, and a new caf茅. Outside, a circular event plaza will provide additional space for outdoor programming and performances.

The celebrated Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is undergoing an expansion that will increase the size of the current facilities by 50%. Image: Safdie Architects.

As a precursor to the expansion, a reconfigured main lobby and courtyard, also designed by Safdie Architects, was completed in May 2021.

海角视频 employed innovative solutions in reinforced concrete, timber, and the use of geotechnical and hydrology data to make the original museum possible. We are returning to provide continuity of expertise for the expansion to enable the continuation of Crystal Bridges鈥� vision of seamlessly integrating art and nature.

As with the original museum building, the primary materials of the expansion 鈥� concrete, timber, and fieldstone 鈥� are sourced from Northwest Arkansas to echo the natural beauty of the site and celebrate the Ozark region鈥檚 craft traditions. Local materials are also more sustainable by leveraging available resources and minimising shipping and related energy costs. The new structures will blend with the existing buildings, distinguished by arched timber roofs supported by catenary cables. A landmark new circular skylight will provide one of the most memorable spaces in the new wing.

Solution

Conditions within the gallery spaces must be finely controlled to ensure the safe storage and display of historic artworks. Consequently, the interface with the new skylight and dome was critical 鈥� particularly in terms of mitigating any impact on the internal environment in terms of temperatures and humidity levels.  

Our MEP experts worked closely with the wider design team on the siting of a second plant room to service the new extension. This provides resilience to the system, but also allows for the delivery of efficiencies via the latest state-of-the-art MEP equipment that can respond swiftly to fluctuations in the external environmental conditions.

For the design of the new canopy structure we had to thread foundation solutions around the existing below-ground constraints, including a significant culvert. It was also critical to ensure the loads generated by the canopy could be carried by the adjoining existing structure with a series of elegant connections. 

Our IT and AV teams provided strategic input into the designs around delivering the integrated networking and digital infrastructure needed for both displays and interpretation points, as well as point of sale and caf茅 locations.

The integrated AV system is based on 鈥淎V over IP鈥� (internet protocol) technology, which incorporates transmitters and receivers from across the complex that sit on the client鈥檚 network and allow the sending and receiving of audio and visual from point A to point B almost anywhere on the campus.

For a large event, the 11 spaces within the education wing can all have the same AV broadcast to them, or it can be broken down to the 11 individual spaces, with different AV material being broadcast to each or live-streamed from each of them.

The system provides a raft of portable cameras, screens and numerous connection points, to allow a greater deal of flexibility. These connect with a central AV production control room, with two-way microphone/speakers to allow educators to communicate directly with the in-house tech team at any time.

Sophisticated AV facilities are provided for a broad range of events 鈥� from staged events in a large multi-purpose hall, through to weddings held in a 鈥渟plash park鈥� plaza space. Other stand-out AV facilities include an inflatable projection screen for movie nights on the lawn, and background music and small live performance facilities in the caf茅 venue.

Our security system experts also created a significant expansion to the current facilities to ensure the safety of the artworks housed in the space.

We incorporated visitor counters and people flow monitoring technology into the design to allow the institution to manage the movement of visitors, mitigate against any bottlenecks and understand which installations are proving popular, and which might be getting missed by visitors.

Our facades engineers worked closely with the design team to ensure the extension blends seamlessly with the original building, while adopting any technological and building performance-related innovations where evolution had taken place in the preceding decade.

The facades team was heavily involved in the process of strategizing around the choice of glazing to ensure the best performance in terms of light quality, and maintenance of the internal environment and protection of the artworks. This included ensuring the glass protected against the ingress of both extreme infra-red and ultra-violet levels of light, and mitigation against the potential for condensation to occur 鈥� all of which can have an impact on the historic exhibits.

Another particular innovation, designed in collaboration with Safdie Architects, was series of north-facing skylights in one of the new buildings. The daylight design team wanted more indirect light to be brought in via the skylights than was being naturally achieved. Our facades experts designed a series of small bespoke reflectors, with a sophisticated connections strategy against the adjacent roof, to allow more daylight to be bounced into the space.

Value

海角视频鈥檚 team is delivering a full suite of multidisciplinary expertise that is enabling this visionary project to be realised 鈥� increasing the footprint of this landmark cultural attraction by almost 50%.

Envisioned to support Crystal Bridges鈥� commitment to free access to art for all, the new space will increase its capacity for presenting art and exhibitions, educational and outreach initiatives, cultural programming, and community events.