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Take a look inside Allied Works' Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State ahead of June opening

2024-04-11T12:15:00-04:00

Allied Works’ collaboration with Reed Hilderbrand for the new Palmer Museum of Art at Pennsylvania State University is closing in on its June 1st opening. The firm has shared new photos previewing its work ahead of the inauguration, which will culminate a two-year construction period for a cost of $85 million.

The 73,000-square-foot building is defined by interlocking sandstone-clad pavilions contained within double-height volumes. These allow for unique spatial variations in each of the 20 new galleries, highlighting the diversity of its collection to visitors.

Image: Jeremy Bittermann/JSBA

An overhead skybridge — the new Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross Gateway — links both wings while establishing panoramic vistas of the university's Arboretum and H.O. Smith Botanic Garden outside. —

Image: Jeremy Bittermann/JSBA

Small exterior courtyards are created by the design, which is similar in concept to Allied Works' 2008 Dutchess County Guest House in upstate New York and the firm's shortlisted compet...

Allied Works' Palmer Museum of Art is set for a 2024 opening at Penn State

2023-12-14T14:21:00-05:00

The Allied Works-designed Palmer Museum of Art expansion project at Pennsylvania State University has shared new photos of its construction progress to go along with an announced opening date of June 1 next year.

Reed Hilderbrand is coordinating with the firm to deliver the landscaped portion of the LEED Silver-certified design. The project doubles the museum’s existing footprint by adding a new 73,000-square-foot building with 20 new galleries, a café, education, research, and events spaces situated amongst the 370-acre university Arboretum and serviced by a sculpture path and outdoor terraces.

Dale Chihuly’s site-specific sculptural commission, “Lupine Blue Persian Wall,” will be debuted as an anchor that welcomes visitors to the main access point and is framed by the museum’s feature staircase.

Photo by Jeremy Bittermann/JSBA, courtesy of Allied Works.

Locally quarried sandstone cladding produces a naturalistic effect on the exterior of each of the building’s interlocking pavilio...

Allied Works shares a fly-through of their Palmer Museum of Art design for Penn State University

2022-10-10T15:46:00-04:00

Allied Works has shared a new fly-through animation of their Palmer Museum of Art project on the campus of Penn State University. The 71,254-square-foot museum offers a significant upgrade to the university’s previous 50-year-old facility.

The animation showcases the site’s enhanced connection to the Penn State Arboretum and the museum's expanded double-height gallery spaces that allow for twice the amount of its collection to be exhibited versus the original building.

Image courtesy MIR

Image courtesy D-Render

The sandstone-clad design incorporates two interlocking pavilions that are linked together by a glass curtain skybridge, with a series of skylights operated by a multi-layer daylight control system. Additional portals serve as curated "lenses" through which the landscaped connection provided by Reed Hilderbrand can be assessed by the museum's 70,000 anticipated yearly visitors.

Previously on Archinect: Allied Works reveals plans for its expansion of the new Palmer Museum at P...

Allied Works selected to lead Vero Beach Museum of Art expansion and renovation

2022-06-24T13:45:00-04:00

The Vero Beach Museum of Art (VBMA) has announced the appointment of international design firm Allied Works Architecture to lead the expansion and renovation of the 35-year-old institution. Recognized for its arts and cultural projects, Allied Works will focus on building the museum's resiliency and future growth needs.

Allied Works was chosen following an extensive nine-month search that included a line-up of 13 national architecture firms and an eventual shortlist of four. VBMA worked with architect selection advisor David Meckel to conduct the selection process. The design team will be led by Allied Works founder Brad Cloepfil and Principals Chelsea Grassinger and Gabe Smith.

"We're delighted to have the opportunity to work with everyone at VBMA and bring this project to fruition," said Grassinger.

"Brad, Chelsea, Gabe and their team fully embraced the complexities and opportunities of our project, which involves opening up to a lush park environment while simultaneously buildi...

Allied Works reveals plans for its expansion of the new Palmer Museum at Penn State

2021-07-31T21:22:00-04:00

Final plans for the new LEED-certified museum expansion at Penn State have been unveiled this week after years of anticipation for a project with an ultimate price tag of $85 million.

The project, announced by the school’s board of trustees in 2019, will significantly improve physical spaces for the nearly 50-year-old Palmer Museum of Art, which has been plagued by water damage and an antiquated heating and air system for a number of years.

Palmer Museum Rendering, View from Overlook Pavilion Arboretum. Rendering by MIR

Allied Works will partner with designers from Reed Hilderbrand to create a site-specific expansion on the university’s campus that responds to the local environment in Happy Valley via enhancements to an existing arboretum and a duo of walkway-linked pavilion-style buildings made of stone from local quarries.

The new buildings will allow the museum’s collection to be exhibited in more natural surroundings to the over 10,000 student visitors it hosts every year.

The...

The resounding success of Allied Works Architecture's "National Music Center"

2017-02-16T20:39:00-05:00

Incorporating both physical and intangible elements of Canada's musical history, the National Music Center by Allied Works is a nine-towered, terra-cotta tile clad complex that not only ropes a 112-year old hotel/blues club into the mix, but creates the kind of spaces suited for gazing dreamily into one's future.

According to Brad Cloepfil, Principal at Allied Works Architecture, the structure was "inspired by the light, landscape and geography of the northern prairie."

He goes on to note that "Studio Bell was created to amplify the rich history and future possibilities of Canadian music. The building aspires to create a sense of wonder and mystery, inspiring the visitor to explore. Nine separate towers rise five floors above the street, each resonating with music and activity. The building is alive with the life of music throughout its exhibition, recording, editing, performance and education spaces. The distinct vessels of music are bound together by the space between them, moments ...

Albright-Knox Gallery announces short list of firms for $80m expansion: Snøhetta, BIG, OMA, wHY, Allied Works

2016-03-02T12:51:00-05:00

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery wants to create a public space that could rival Canalside while expanding and remaking one of the city’s most recognizable institutions. And gallery officials are looking to some of the most respected architects in the world to make it happen. They have narrowed the list of potential architects for the gallery’s upcoming expansion project to five firms with experience building in challenging urban environments.

Located in the historic, Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Delaware Park, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery is one of the major cultural hotspots of New York State's second largest city. Now, the contemporary and modern art gallery plans a major expansion of its facilities, which originally opened in 1905 and later gained an addition designed by Gordon Bushaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

The Albright-Knox Gallery announced a preliminary list of prominent designers, with a plan to select one by mid-June. The firms are:

Unlike with other architectural competitions, the Albright-Knox Galley has not asked the firms to submit a near-finalized design. Instead, they've incorporated a yearlong period into the planning process, in order to foster close collaboration with the chosen architects.

“We’re not in a design competition to choose a design and then build it. We’re in a process of choosing a partner,” Albright-Knox director Janne...

The designs of Allied Works – a "counter proposal to the age of instant image making"

2016-02-10T17:24:00-05:00

What I like and what I believe about those sketches and models is that they’re distillations of ideas ... They could become art installations, or they could become buildings. They’re sort of hybrid pieces in the world of visual ideas before they become buildings [...] I always go see the site and try to discern what the energy, nature, and character of the place are—the possibilities of a place. Then I start drawing.

More from the Portland, OR and NYC-based firm:

With modern Charleston building off the table, Clemson looking to lease space for its architecture center

2015-07-20T13:15:00-04:00

Clemson University plans to lease space in downtown Charleston to house all of its locally based architecture and historic preservation programs until it decides on a permanent location. The decision comes about eight months after the university scrubbed plans for a contemporary architecture center at George and Meeting streets. The proposed building’s sleek design sparked a lawsuit by neighborhoods and preservation groups.

Previously: Clemson scraps its modern building plan

Clemson scraps its modern building plan

2014-11-20T14:07:00-05:00

Clemson University has backed off its plans to build a modern architecture center at Meeting and George streets - a project applauded at first but later bitterly fought by two neighborhoods and preservation groups. Clemson announced its decision to change course on its $10 million Spaulding Paolozzi Center in the wake of a recent lawsuit filed challenging how the city's Board of Architectural Review handled its approval.

Previously: Charleston groups sue over approval of Clemson architecture center's proposed design

Charleston groups sue over approval of Clemson architecture center's proposed design

2014-07-25T14:32:00-04:00

Last month, the Board of Architectural Review voted 4-2 to give preliminary approval to the Spaulding Paolozzi Center design by Portland, Ore., architect Brad Cloepfil. The vote marked the second level of approval in the city's three-step review. [...] This week, the Historic Charleston Foundation, the Preservation Society and the Charlestowne and Historic Ansonborough neighborhood associations took their fight to another venue: Charleston County's Court of Common Pleas.

Previously: Clemson architecture center gets city approval; residents pan design

Clemson architecture center gets city approval; residents pan design

2014-06-26T15:07:00-04:00

Charleston's Board of Architectural Review voted 4-2 Wednesday to allow what may be the most strikingly contemporary building ever placed before it. Architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture said the board's approval of the proposed Clemson Architecture Center design may reverberate beyond its site at George and Meeting streets. "What's exciting to me is it's a moment in this city. It's a pivot point," he said. "It just elevates the discussion of architecture [...]."

Previously:

Allied Works Breaks Ground on New Tasting Room for Oregon Winery

2013-02-15T20:19:00-05:00

Construction has begun on a new Tasting Room for Sokol Blosser Winery in the Willamette Valley wine region. Designed by Brad Cloepfil, founding principal of Allied Works Architecture, the new building will provide a range of spaces for sampling Sokol Bosser’s wines and viewing their Yamhill County estate. One of the founders of Oregon’s wine making industry, the Sokol Blosser family has been producing Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and other varietals since 1978.

In 2012, the winery commissioned Allied Works to develop a master plan and design a new tasting room and event space that would be the showpiece of the 100-acre estate. The project will be the first to bring internationally-recognized, contemporary architecture to the heart of the Oregon wine country.

Commenting on the new building, founder Susan Sokol Blosser stated, “In 1977, when we built the first tasting room in the state, we chose John Storrs, the most celebrated Oregon architect of the time. Thirty-five years lat...

After hailstorm of complaints, board approves Clemson design

2012-10-11T14:17:00-04:00

Audience members sat on the floor and stood in the aisles in the packed third-floor conference room where the BAR holds its hearings. Numerous neighborhood associations and preservationists had come to weigh in on the design, but the size of the crowd was also partly due to College of Charleston professor David Payne, who brought his historic preservation and community planning class to observe the melee.

From yesterday, New Clemson University architecture building set to test Charleston's limits on context.

New Clemson University architecture building set to test Charleston's limits on context

2012-10-10T17:14:00-04:00

“We were hired to do the most important piece of contemporary architecture — or architecture of our time — that we can do in this city,” Cloepfil says. The design for the 30,000-square-foot center at the northeast corner of George and Meeting streets includes three rectangular masses, not unlike grand three-story single houses in their approximate size.

Clemson selects Allied Works and e.e. fava for new architecture center building

2012-02-20T18:48:00-05:00

The school announced Friday that it has selected Allied Works Architecture of Portland and e.e. fava architects, etc. of Charleston to design a new three-story building at George and Meeting streets. Richard Goodstein, dean of Clemson's College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities, said the firms were chosen "because of their deep experience in urban design, their commitment to sustainability and their demonstrated sensitivity to place and context."

Architect Brad Cloepfil: On architecture, design in Portland, and Allied Works' first creative phase

2012-01-25T20:40:00-05:00

The majority of architecture culture just puts out books. I mean, if we were to participate in that consumer culture of architecture publications, we would have put a book out six or seven years ago. But I wanted to wait until we had buildings. We feature one competition in the book and the rest of it is about real projects. That means a lot to me as an architect.

Allied Works Architecture unveils design of new National Music Centre in Calgary

2011-06-22T19:14:00-04:00

Two years after holding an international architectural competition that saw world-renowned designers face off in a public presentation, the National Music Centre revealed the extraordinary final design by Allied Works Architecture, the winner of the competition.