austin museum of art

austin, tx

overview:

The opportunity is to develop an urban landscape plan for the new Austin Museum of Art downtown. This includes developing an entrance plaza to the Museum, a perimeter streetscape, a cafe area, an interior light court and an exterior sculpture garden on the second floor of the Museum. 
The intent of the entrance is to create a flexible space for gatherings, community events, sculpture exhibitions, street vendors and activities of day to day life. Other solutions include: the "pencil thin" jet streams which provide a playful and dramatic water feature, diffuse noise of traffic between the street and museum plaza, and provide an overall cooling effect. The Cafe area serves to animate the plaza and connect the Museum's interior with the exterior plaza. The interior Light Court is open to the air and will feature 25' tall giant bamboo. It is meant to be a flexible space for sculpture exhibitions, museum events or simply a quiet contemplative place.The sculpture garden is designed with simple lines, planes and forms which are applied with restraint to let the sculpture dominate. A grass plane and concrete paving articulate the simplicity of the space and a large steel trellis attached to the south facade serves as a shade screen from southern exposure and as a dominant sculptural landscape feature.