University of Iowa Visual Arts Building, Steven Holl Architecture Images, UI Design News

University of Iowa Visual Arts Building, USA

Higher Education Building in USA design by Steven Holl Architects

Apr 7, 2017

University of Iowa Visual Arts Building is an American Architecture Awards Winner in 2017

Design: Steven Holl Architects

American Architecture Awards 2017

University of Iowa Visual Arts Building News

One of seventy-nine shortlisted buildings that have won the prestigious 2017 American Architecture Awards ® for the best new buildings designed and constructed by American architects in the U.S. and abroad and by international architects for buildings designed and built in the United States.

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA VISUAL ARTS BUILDING, Iowa City, Iowa | 2016

The new Visual Arts facility for the University of Iowa’s School of Art and Art History provides 126,000-sf of loft-like space for all visual arts media, from ancient metalsmithing techniques to the most advanced virtual reality technologies, including Ceramics, 3D Design, Metal Arts & Jewelry, Sculpture, Printmaking, Painting & Drawing, Graphic Design, Intermedia, Video Art, and Photography. Also housed are galleries, faculty offices, an outdoor rooftop studio, and teaching spaces for Art History.

photographs © Iwan Baan

The Visual Arts Building replaces an original arts building from 1936, which was heavily damaged during a flood of the University of Iowa campus in June 2008.

The new building forms an Arts Quad with Art Building West, which was designed by Steven Holl Architects and has drawn students from all over campus to its social spaces and library since opening in 2006.

Together they form a visual arts campus for theorizing, teaching and making art. While the 2006 Arts Building West is horizontally porous and of planar composition, the new building is vertically porous and volumetrically composed. The aim of maximum interaction between all departments of the school takes shape in social circulation spaces.

The following five points describe the projects core conceptual elements:
1. Interconnection: Horizontal Programs, Vertical Porosity | In a school of the arts today, interconnection and crossover, made increasingly possible through digital techniques, are of fundamental importance. Interdisciplinary collaboration between the School’s various art departments is facilitated in the vertical carving out of large open floor plates. Students can see activities ongoing across these openings and be encouraged to interact and meet. Further interconnection is facilitated by glass partitions along the studio walls adjacent to internal circulation.

2. Multiple Centers of Light | Natural light and ventilation reach into the core of the building via “centers of light.” The seven vertical cutouts are characterized by a language of shifted layers, where one floor plate slides past another. This geometry creates multiple balconies, providing outdoor meeting spaces and informal exterior working space, further encouraging interaction between the building’s four levels

3. Stairs as Vertical Social Condensers: Corridors as Horizontal Meeting Spaces | Stairs are shaped to enable informal meeting, interaction and discussion. Some stairs stop at generous landings with tables and chairs, others open onto lounge spaces with sofas, for informal collaborative work.

4. Campus Space Definition/Porosity | The original grid of the campus breaks up at the Iowa River, becoming organic as it hits the limestone bluff. The Arts West building reflects this irregular geometry in fuzzy edges. The new building picks up the campus grid again in its simple plan, defining the new campus space of the “arts meadow.”

5. Material Resonance, Ecological Innovation | Natural ventilation is achieved via operable windows and skylights. A punched concrete frame structure provides thermal mass at the exterior while “bubble” slabs provide radiant cooling and heating. A Rheinzink skin in weathering blue-green is perforated for sun shade on the southwest and southeast.

Architects: Steven Holl Architects
Associate Architects: BNIM Architects
Design Team: Steven Holl, Chris McVoy, Rychiee Espinosa, Garrick Ambrose, Bell Ying Yi Cai, Christiane Deptolla, JongSeo Lee, Johanna Muszbek, Garrett Ricciardi, and Filipe Taboada,
Client: University of Iowa
General Contractor: Miron Construction Co., Inc.
Structural Engineers: Buro Happold and Structural Engineering Associates, Inc.
Lighting Consultants: L’Observatoire International
Sustainability Engineers: Transsolar
Mechanical Engineers: Design Engineers
Curtain Wall Consultants: WJ Higgins & Co.
Civil Engineers: Shive-Hattery
Audio/Visual Consultants: The Sextant Group Inc.
Photographers: Iwan Baan

University of Iowa Visual Arts Building photos / information received from American Architecture Awards

27 Sep 2013

University of Iowa Visual Arts Building Design

Steven Holl Architects’ Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa Starts Construction

Design: Steven Holl Architects

September 27, 2013: Iowa City, Iowa – The new Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa celebrates the beginning of construction today.

picture : Steven Holl Architects

Designed by Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with BNIM, the new facility for the University of Iowa’s School of Art and Art History will provide 126,000 sf of loft-like space for the departments of ceramics, sculpture, metals, photography, print making, and 3D multimedia. It will also include graduate student studios, faculty and staff studios and offices, and gallery space.

The new Visual Arts Building relocates and expands educational space from the original 1936 arts building, which was heavily damaged during a flood of the University of Iowa campus in June 2008. The new building will be located directly adjacent to and northwest of Art Building West, which was designed by Steven Holl Architects and has received numerous awards since its opening in 2006.

picture : Steven Holl Architects

While the 2006 Arts Building West is horizontally porous and of planar composition, the new building will be vertically porous and volumetrically composed. Natural light and ventilation are inserted into the deep floor plates via multiple centers of light.

The aim of maximum interaction between all departments of the school takes shape in social circulation spaces. Seven vertical cutouts encourage interaction between all four levels. These light courts are characterized by a language of shifted layers where one floor plate slides past another. This geometry creates multiple balconies, providing outdoor meeting spaces and informal exterior working space. Interior stairs stop at generous landings with tables and chairs, and lounge spaces with sofas.

Steven Holl said, “We are very pleased to be able to work again with the University of Iowa towards the creation of campus space as well as an inspiring new facility for the arts.”

Chris McVoy added, “We are excited to begin construction on this ambitious studio arts building, which offers the rare circumstance to realize a complementary architecture and shape campus space with one of our favorite built works, the 2006 Art Building West. The new building is dedicated to space for the ever-evolving practice of art within and across different disciplines, from foundry to digital media, all connected by porous social spaces and light courts.”

The project, led by Steven Holl and Chris McVoy, is scheduled to open in 2016. Steven Holl Architects and BNIM were selected as the winning team to design the new Visual Arts Building in a competition organized by the University in 2010.

pictures : Steven Holl Architects

The LEED Gold building includes an accessible green roof, and integrates active slab heating and cooling into the exposed loft-like concrete bubble deck structure.

University of Iowa Visual Arts Building images / information received from Steven Holl Architects

University of Iowa design : Steven Holl

University of Iowa Arts Building : background information

Location: Iowa City, IA, United States