After winning the competition for the new El Paso Children's Museum, Snøhetta has unveiled its playful and adventurous design for the city's new educational center. The 70,000 sf museum is set within the heart of El Paso's Downtown Arts district. Through an unorthodox use of geometries, the building distinguishes itself from the rest of the local skyline.
The rectilinear base is wrapped in glass, allowing for plenty of natural light and interior views for the public on the outside. A succession of barrel vaults add a rhythmic quality to the structure that seems to represent a "cloud-like crown."
Outdoor public amenities such as streetscapes, gathering areas, and gardens have also been introduced to the new museum to take advantage of El Paso's sunny climate. At the eastern end of the building, a terraced "discovery garden" creates a series of outdoor rooms, each with one-of-a-kind atmospheres to explore.
The first floor includes free exhibitions and a cafe accompanies by the entrance to the learning landscapes. From the lobby, visitors will come upon a 60-floor atrium that delivers views to a climbing structure that spans the second to the fourth floor. Windows and lookout also provide opportunities to endow views of the Franklin Mountains to the northeast, and the Sierra de Juarez Mountains to the southwest.
Exhibit design was done by Gyroscope with Exigo Architecture the architect of record on the project and Greenway Studio as the landscape architect of record. The art canopy designs were done by Futureforms and Snøhetta led the team as design architect and landscape architect.
8 Comments
Wow, I actually like this.
Hell to the yeah.
It is one thing to design childish architecture for adults (BIG). But building for children is an entirely different mater.
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Such a playful touch, adding the steeply pitched gable roof after the succession of the rolling tops of the cloud. Is this a house? A cloud? A cloud house? A house cloud? The square, flat dormer descends down the side to a curved conclusion, this shape picked up elsewhere in variations, taking us in yet other directions. And the whole cloud/house floats on glass. The imagination soars.
Agreed! Check out that section perspective though... something very beaux-arts about it with the atrium, the thick poche and domes at the roof, and the proportions. Incredibly mature architecture for children.
There are reasons great works for children engage adults and stay with them. They are rooted in powerful imaginations.
From Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think
Still one of my favorite, plus the right mindset; spot on, without the guilt.
Museums for kids.
Alan Maskin is one of the few good ones.
That upside down arched window makes me giddy.
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