ARTifacts | Randy Brown Architects

2012 AIA Honor Awards for interior architecture Omaha, NE / United States / 2011

2
2 Love 1,089 Visits Published
The Kent Bellows Studio and Center for Visual Arts strives to ignite the creative spark in inner city youth. The design focused on minimal interventions to upgrade the building and provide the new spaces for the facility. The storefront intervention was a three dimensional sculpture of steel plates/tubes which creates windows, seating, facility signage, and the main entrance. The staircase/balcony intervention creates a continuous steel plate walkway that connects the entrance, gallery, library, office and the second floor studios. The library intervention is a meeting and reading space hovering above the gallery defined by a folded wood panel wall/ceiling that frames the artist’s moving backdrop wall. Kent Bellows (1949 – 2005) was a lifelong Nebraska Artist who has been recognized as one of America’s greatest masters of American Realism and was known as a mentor for friends, colleagues and burgeoning artists. The Kent Bellows Foundation requested a renovation to the artist’s work/live building to transform it into a center for art and student mentoring. The Kent Bellows Studio and Center for Visual Arts strives to ignite the creative spark in inner city youth, encouraging them to reach their highest potential through self expression in the visual arts. Artists ages 12-21 attend workshops and receive mentoring from nationally renowned artists through various programs and events put on by the Center. The artist had worked in the building for twenty years and had built out much of the space with his own hands. Our intention was to identify the artifacts the artist left that had meaning. We identified and preserved 9 artifacts (gallery floor, Kent’s parka, glass block transom, moving backdrop wall, books, collages, light fixture pulley, wall mural, and wall installation). Working with the artifacts, the design focused on minimal interventions to upgrade the building and provide the new spaces for the facility. The storefront intervention was a three dimensional sculpture of steel plates/tubes which creates windows, seating, facility signage, and the main entrance. The staircase/balcony intervention creates a continuous steel plate walkway that connects the entrance, gallery, library, office and the second floor studios. The library intervention is a meeting and reading space hovering above the gallery defined by a folded wood panel wall/ceiling that frames the artist’s moving backdrop wall.
2 users love this project
Comments
    comment
    user
    Enlarge image

    The Kent Bellows Studio and Center for Visual Arts strives to ignite the creative spark in inner city youth. The design focused on minimal interventions to upgrade the building and provide the new spaces for the facility. The storefront intervention was a three dimensional sculpture of steel plates/tubes which creates windows, seating, facility signage, and the main entrance. The staircase/balcony intervention creates a continuous steel plate walkway that connects the entrance, gallery,...

    Project details
    • Year 2011
    • Work finished in 2011
    • Status Completed works
    Archilovers On Instagram
    Lovers 2 users