Arch 574: Art Complex
Graduate Design Studio
Bhujon Kang, Fall 2018
The Art Complex creates quiet meditative spaces where guests could have an unhurried and intimate experience of artwork. Located on a corner plot in downtown Champaign overlooking Westside Park, the building takes full advantage of its surrounding views and adds value to the neighborhood. It appears to erode as it nears the street as it engages more closely with its setting.
The design was generated from a diagram of the different programs that populate the ground floor of the building. The programs were then used as ‘seeds’ in a grasshopper script to generate Voronoi cells that form the basic grid of the building. These cells were then modified through surface offsets, extrusions and bending to create ‘tent’ like structures with draped openings to house the artwork. Some of the cells were subtracted from the floor plate to create double height volumes and terraces.
The building has four stories with a spiral staircase housed in its own “tent.” There are six “tents” of varying sizes throughout the building; each has a skylight with deep fins to allow diffused light to illuminate the space.
Process drawings showing how the plan diagram was converted into a grid for the building and how these Voronoi cells were manipulated.
Art Complex site plan and immediate context.
First floor plan showing Vornoi cells acting as the primary organizing strategy for the building programs.
Building section showing “tents” across multiple floors.
Brick is used as a “living” material on the exterior because it breathes (allows air to flow through at a small scale), and will evolve over time as it weathers.
Interior view of second floor with draped walls and “tents” forming multi-height gallery spaces.