Storm King Art Center, a 500-acre outdoor museum, has been providing unique and inspiring experiences for over sixty years. The institution has continually challenged both visitors and artists to reconsider the traditional concept of a museum. Through their Capital Project, Storm King Art Center has achieved an integrated and flexible architectural program that enhances the visitor experience, while expanding and preserving the landscape. The project has also created additional opportunities for collaboration with artists as well as the preservation and maintenance of art.
One of the core design philosophies of the Capital Project was to honor the landscape and nature at Storm King. By providing lighting design and structural engineering services, Arup supported Storm King through a critical phase of their site investment, including the design and construction of the Visitor Welcome Sequence and the David R. Collens Building for Conservation, Fabrication, and Maintenance.
With a focus on reimagining the experience of entering Storm King, the Welcome Sequence features an outdoor lobby designed to enhance visitor hospitality and includes a pavilion for ticketing and information, restrooms, and canopy space for group gatherings, all surrounded by a landscape of native plants. In collaboration with the project team, Arup’s thoughtful engineering allows for the new ticketing structure to blend with the historic architecture, preserving the site's character while introducing modern functionality.
The David R. Collens Building for Conservation, Fabrication, and Maintenance enhances Storm King's capacity to support large-scale artistic projects. Named in honor of Storm King's former Director and Chief Curator, it was designed for creative collaboration and will function as a workshop, studio, mechanical shop, storage space, and office.
Storm King has a long legacy of landscape stewardship and environmental sustainability. With this top of mind, Arup’s lighting team designed intentional lighting that harmonizes with the surrounding nature and the structural team took great care to integrate existing structures with new amenities. The capital project prominently utilizes clean, renewable energy, and enriches Storm King Art Center's landscape with resilient new plantings to address climate change. Storm King's mission and values integrate diversity, equity, and accessibility with sustainability, emphasizing the provision of art to the public.
Harmonizing nature through lighting
Located outside New York City, at Storm King you can see the stars at night. Given the sensitive nature of the site, we designed for placement of light on pathways and within facilities only where it is absolutely needed, aiming to ‘light the task and not the architecture.’ Arup’s lighting team crafted purposeful lighting solutions that celebrate the natural beauty of Storm King. To achieve this, the project team designed from the inside out, starting with an exercise in understanding each task across the site and establishing clear lighting priorities. This approach resulted in extensive daylight harvesting throughout Storm King, including skylights in restroom cubicles, allowing electric lighting consumption to be kept to a minimum.
For the Welcome Visitor Sequence, the lighting was intentionally designed to be low to avoid creating a theme park-like atmosphere. Daylighting was preserved through small, effective skylights in each restroom stall, maintaining the outdoor lobby feel without stark transitions between indoor and outdoor spaces.
At the David R. Collens Building, the lighting creates a daylight atmosphere for an art workshop-style building. Daylight that is consummate with exterior environments is a key element of the building, helping enhance work on art pieces, while remaining energy conscious to minimize heating gains. The architectural lighting system is automatically controlled for sensing the daylight, adding to the building’s energy savings.
Preserving history through innovative structural design
At the Visitor Welcome Sequence, Arup’s structural team delivered innovative, sustainable designs that support daylighting strategies and enhance environmental integration. For the new buildings, timber is utilized as a construction material to complement the natural setting and replace high-carbon materials like cement and brick. Thoughtful detailing connects timber to the steel structure, enabling both materials to work together in the lateral and gravity systems. We supported the team in the selective demolition of a twentieth-century addition building, which had undergone multiple expansions since its original construction in 1749. Careful structural consideration was given to constructing a new ticketing pavilion adjacent to the existing stone building, with inventive solutions provided for its foundation and construction joint.
At the David R. Collens Building, Arup’s structural experts collaborated closely with the project team to engineer long spans for a largely column-free space and devised innovative solutions to support large garage doors and skylights.
Careful structural consideration was given to constructing a new ticketing pavilion adjacent to the existing stone building. Image © Richard Barnes
For the new buildings, timber is utilized as a construction material to complement the natural setting and replace high-carbon materials like cement and brick. Image © Richard Barnes
Arup’s structural experts collaborated closely with the project team to engineer long spans for a largely column-free space and devised innovative solutions to support large garage doors and skylights. Image © Richard Barnes
Banner image credit: Richard Barnes
heneghan peng architects / WXY architecture + urban design / Reed Hilderbrand / Gustafson Porter + Bowman / Envoie Projects / Consigli Construction Co.
Projekte
Entdecken Sie weitere Kunst- und Kulturprojekte
Weltklasse-Akustik für den neuen Konzertsaal in München
Konzerthaus München, Deutschland
Das Opernhaus von Sydney für alle zugänglich und sicher machen
Jahrzehnt der Erneuerung des Opernhauses von Sydney - Barrierefreiheit und Sicherheit, Australien
Erneuerung der Konzerthalle des Sydney Opera House, einem weltweit führenden Ort für zeitgenössische Kunst
Erneuerung des Konzertsaals der Oper von Sydney, Australien
Die Gestaltung des Opernhauses von Sydney
Die Gestaltung des Opernhauses von Sydney, Australien
Nehmen Sie Kontakt mit uns auf
Wenn Sie mit einem unserer Experten für Kunst und Kultur sprechen möchten, füllen Sie bitte das Formular aus.
