A team led by Morphosis is designing a new 12-acre arts and cultural district at the University of Texas at Dallas. 

Called the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenæum, the project will bring a second location of the Crow Museum of Asian Art as well as a performance hall and a planned museum for the traditional arts of the Americas. According to the architects, the new athenaeum breaks from the conventional, reserved model of this building type into one that prioritizes porosity, visibility, and informal connections between its users. 

The structure will be located at the southeast corner of the University’s campus, organized around a central plaza and flanked by the museums and performance hall on the west and the parking structure to the east. To the north, the plaza aligns with social and green spaces that support the Naveen Jindal School of Management and Davidson Auditorium. On the opposite end, the arts district establishes a new public-facing presence for the University at the southern gateway to the campus. 

The central plaza serves as the heart of the master plan, creating “a new gateway to the university as well as a destination for students, faculty, staff and community to foster engagement in the arts and learning,” according to UT Dallas. It is activated by outdoor seating and cafés, landscaped gardens, tree-lined avenues, water features, and various art installations and sculptures from the University and Crow collections. 

The museums and performing arts hall are conceived as volumes carved from a two-story unified mass, with “sympathetic” forms and outdoor spaces in between them, the project description explains. The buildings are clad in striated façades of light-colored precast concrete. The interiors are linked to the plaza via large lobbies and glazed atriums. Contrasting the activity of the plaza, small gardens in between each of the arts buildings offer more intimate outdoor spaces. In addition, the buildings feature loggia that face the plaza. 

Celebrating Morphosis’ work, UT Dallas remarked, “The firm created a cohesive vision and master plan for the Athenæum, where architecture and landscape combine to form a dynamic new district with a distinct identity that establishes UT Dallas as a cultural hub.”

Groundbreaking for the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenæum occurred in mid-May, and construction is expected to be complete in 2025. The endeavor was made possible by a $32 million gift from the O’Donnell Foundation. 

Engineering consultancy Buro Happold was also enlisted to carry out mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering and to spearhead LEED/sustainability consulting for the expansion.