Firm： höffnerdesignstudio

Type： Cultural › Gallery Museum

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2020

SIZE： 5000 sqft - 10,000 sqft

BUDGET： $10K - 50K

Photos： Joseph Mills Photography (12)

The design solution captures the spirit of Goff’s unique school of architecture in a choreographed journey for visitors. Visual cues attract and imply direction as spatial compression and release signal distinct curatorial sections. Cardboard “stations” and a spiral-shaped plywood gallery parse the information into digestible packages; the material palette itself evoking an architectural model.

The design gives the unusual works a sympathetic context. The design team used "shingled" elements to mirror seminal projects from this uniquely American school of work. Meanwhile, the finishes and fixtures mediate an indifferent white box gallery with the wildly organic projects on display.

The exhibit fixtures are constructed of recyclable cardboard and honeycomb panel - made in the students’ digital fabrication lab where no one is afraid of an unusual project.

However, it was a different story for the spiral-shaped plywood element. A millwork shop initially declined the work, saying it’s "too wild" to build. The design team accepted this as a challenge, designing a jig on which each of the 21 seemingly unique panels could be built, and convinced the millwork shop that they could in fact build the plywood spiral.

The gallery buildout had to happen in a three week window and museum staff questioned whether it could be done. Yet, the project designers; faculty and staff; friends and family members; and students all came together to realize this ambitious project on time. Coincidentally, seminal American School works such as Goff’s Bavinger House and Greene’s Prairie House were realized in the same manner.