Bruce Museum / Eskew+Dumez+Ripple

Textual content description supplied by the architects. The Bruce Museum is a regional cultural establishment situated in Greenwich, Connecticut with a multi-disciplinary assortment and exhibition program bringing collectively artwork, science, and pure historical past. In 2014, following a nationwide design competitors, the Bruce Museum launched into a journey to revitalize its campus to hold the establishment into the longer term. Following the competitors, the design workforce led a rigorous preliminary programming research to dig deep into the wants of the museum and assist its capacity to function a group useful resource.

The ensuing challenge is a complete renovation of the present museum’s 32,500-square-foot construction together with a 42,000-square-foot addition, offering everlasting and altering gallery area, expanded assortment storage, and a brand new public entrance foyer and lecture corridor for the museum. Comprising three flooring, the enlargement greater than doubles the present space of the ability and creates a welcoming customer expertise with clear circulation, beneficiant galleries, and ample exhibition, storage, and archival areas for the Museum’s rising assortment.

The brand new design addresses the problematic customer wayfinding of the earlier museum design. Earlier than this enlargement, the museum entry confronted north in direction of noisy Interstate 95, situated on the high of a hill and hidden from the view of holiday makers arriving on the web site. The brand new design reorientates the doorway to face the adjoining Bruce Park, offering guests with an immersive panorama expertise earlier than their entrance into the museum. As a result of the addition primarily stands other than the present home, the design workforce labored to develop a courtyard area between the 2 constructions, one which serves to increase the park into the footprint of the museum to orient guests as they transfer all through the area.

Since opening, the museum’s new areas have rapidly turn into a catalyst for numerous types of engagement. The double-height foyer, café, and reward store seamlessly merge to create an open and free-flowing public area. The brand new lecture corridor has turn into a hub for group programming, celebratory gatherings, and public lectures and receptions.

New altering and everlasting galleries allow the museum to host new, bold exhibitions and supply alternatives for engagement and training. “We are able to host the group in a means we’ve by no means been capable of earlier than,” Bruce Museum Govt Director Robert Wolterstorff says. “Up to now, we had no everlasting collections galleries.” By including these areas, the museum can showcase works that native collectors have generously donated, offering the impetus for different collectors to do the identical.

Pure daylighting was elementary to the design idea. Openings within the façade suffuse the inside areas with gentle, step by step receding in depth as one strikes into the gathering galleries. Drawing inspiration from the distinctive geology of its web site and surrounding area, the design workforce developed a carefully striated façade of forged stone and glass impressed by stone quarries discovered alongside the Connecticut coast. This exterior, animated by the play of sunshine throughout the façade, dramatically modifications look because the solar traverses the sky over the course of the day and time of 12 months.