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BNIM completes Iowa’s Stanley Museum of Art behind ‘dynamic and kinetic’ brick facade

2023-02-20T10:28:00-05:00

The new Stanley Museum of Art at the University of Iowa has opened fifteen years after historic flooding destroyed the campus’ previous arts destination. Designed by BNIM, the new venue serves as a learning and teaching laboratory for the arts and a hub for the wider campus.

Image credit: Nick Merrick

Externally, the new museum is clad in what the design team describes as a “dynamic and kinetic” facade of dark, warm brick. Complimenting the masonry characteristics of neighboring buildings, the material palette also references the academic and cultural brick masonry buildings of Alvar Aalto, Louis Kahn, and Eero and Eliel Saarinen. Through an alternating composition of texture and finish, the façade changes character due to daily and seasonal changes in sunlight, creating varying levels of reflection and shadow.

Image credit: Nick Merrick

The museum is designed as a rectilinear solid form permeated by interconnected voids, creating what the team calls a “protective and respectful home ...

Steven Holl's Visual Arts Building opens Oct. 7th at University of Iowa

2016-10-06T19:34:00-04:00

On Friday October 7th, Steven Holl and Senior Partner Chris McVoy will be on hand to officially open the firm's Visual Arts Building for the University of Iowa, which in addition to being the only building in the United States that uses an integrated hydronic radiant heating and cooling system in combination with a cast-in-place "bubble deck" (thereby eliminating the need to cool or heat air mechanically), is simply gorgeous.

In a signature Steven Holl move, the interior is illuminated by seven vertical cutouts that are defined by the slide and jostle of the four floors against one another. This shifting dynamic creates opportunities for a series of balconies and informal working spaces.

Check out our conversation with Steven Holl from earlier this week:

For the latest on Steven Holl:

Steven Holl's second University of Iowa arts building topped out

2015-03-24T20:48:00-04:00

Steven Holl Architects is gracing the campus grounds of the University of Iowa once again with the recently topped out Visual Arts Building. The firm -- in collaboration with BNIM Architects -- won the competition in 2010 to design the new arts facility, which will house the studio departments for the School of Art and Art History. The Visual Arts Building replaced the original mid-1930s building that became heavily damaged during a flood at the campus in June 2008. The building is slated for a May 2016 opening.

SHA's design focuses greatly on forming new social spaces for students and faculty to gather and intermingle. The vertically porous facility will provide 126,000 sq.ft. of space for graduate student studios, faculty and staff offices, and galleries. Ample loft-like spaces will be allotted to the departments of printmaking, painting, photography, 3D multimedia, and sculptural arts.

Stairs and corridors that weave throughout the four-story structure were designed as "social cond...