Everson Museum Extension | Baxter Hankin

The concept for this project is a juxtaposition between volumes in objects and free plan as a method of spatial organization. This connects to the Everson through the implementation of a levitating mass, which relates back to the cantilevered masses on the original museum. This concept elevates the importance of galleries, creating defined, unique spaces for showcasing art within the levitated mass, while letting the outside and the other main programs blend together in a free plan that blends with the exterior. This acts as a method for circulation and programmatic organization. The concept uses a different massing strategy and different materials from the Everson, making the two buildings distinct and unique.

The concepts of the original Everson and the extension blend together through the sculpture garden. In this area, the raised plinth that the Everson sits on is continued on the triangular grid of the extension, in smaller triangular slabs that become thinner as they approach the extension. These triangular slabs act as display platforms for sculpture. The floor of the original museum and triangles of glass blend into the system of this sculpture garden as well.

The floating mass in the museum extension works by creating a field of tessellating triangles that exist on a regular grid planametrically, while pushing and pulling points of the triangles up and down to make a dynamic landscape, defining space below, above, and the galleries within. There are two main fields of triangles that make up the levitating mass, with one as the roof and the other as the first floor ceiling. The triangles of these two layers are pushed and pulled close together between the galleries to create tall, dramatic spaces that define lobby and store areas on the first floor. The ceiling and roof triangles are pushed further apart in other places to allow for the galleries to fit within the levitated mass. This mass extends its logic to the building’s core, through all floor plans. This becomes most legible when the mass of the core breaks into an atrium.

The glass walls on the ground floor allow for a display of people, program, and select works of art that can draw people into the museum. This display system extends to the second floor, with the largest gallery window facing the original Everson Museum.