01 | AUSTIN ART GALLERY

A Revitalization of Laguna Gloria

The Austin Contemporary Art Museum has two locations - one in the heart of Downtown and one at the city’s periphery at Laguna Gloria. The studio was tasked with designing an interior art gallery for Laguna Gloria. The intention for this project was inspired by an initial visit to the site and the elements of surprise and whimsy that one experiences while traversing the sculpture gardens. The proposed building mimicks this sense of discovery with three sculpted galleries housed in a rectinlinear building. Galleries are ambiguously lit by the diffused light of floor-to-floor clerestories, leading to a stark constrast between exhibit and circulation spaces. From an urban standpoint, the museum provides a new landmark for arriving visitors, and facilitates circulation from street level into the existing landscape.

CLERESTORIES

STEEL FRAME

CONCRETE WAFFLE SLAB

SECONDARY WALLS - WOOD

PRIMARY WALLS - CONCRETE

MASSING

Building as a Noun, Building as a Verb

Professor Kevin Alter

Rhino / Adobe CS / Enscape

UTSOA - Fall 2022

This project focuses on the intimate scale associated with a particular environment for creativity and making things. The task was to design a standalone maker space to reside on the West Terrace of Goldsmith Hall. The program chosen was a furniture design classroom, leading to two main design intentionsfirst to connect the makerspace to the Woodshop beneath the terrace and use it as a vehicle for bringing light into the Woodshop; and second, to visually and tangibly celebrate wood as a construction material and create a builtin learning opportunity for students.