ZGF Architects has announced plans for an expansion of the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

As part of the design, the soon-to-be-renamed Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh will increase in size by three times its current operating capacity. Located near other important cultural institutions inside of the new Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences at the edge of Carnegie Mellon’s campus on Forbes Avenue, the 29,000-square-foot space serves as an interdisciplinary “advocate for new ideas and an aggregator of communities” in dialogue with the neighboring Carnegie Museum of Art and a growing audience of scholars, students, and faculty.

The program calls for a 338,000-square-foot complex of buildings to be divided into two components: a looping wing that contains the ICA and other university spaces, and a set-back tower that will be the new home of the CMU Mellon College of Science and School of Computer Science.

Within the loop, the museum expands from a newly-created public plaza into the ground floor restaurant and classroom spaces. A grand staircase guides visitors to the second floor, and its three modular exhibition galleries are arranged around a central spine that offers the museum space for lectures and other public programming. Finally, the three-story facade is clad in a Fibonacci sequence of high-performance concrete panels trimmed in aluminum to create a lenticular visual effect while evoking the thistle that’s included in the university’s seal. 

The brickwork facade of the tower is also designed in homage to tartan plaid, another important CMU symbol. ZGF Design Partner Kate Mann says their design offers “a case study in symbiosis” and is “designed specifically for the needs of the discipline housed within but also to amplify collaboration across the shared footprint.”

“With a welcoming design and artist-focused mission, ICA Pittsburgh will serve as an advocate for new ideas and an aggregator of communities, providing new lines of inquiry about the most pressing issues of our time through the lens of contemporary art,” ICA Director, Elizabeth Chodos, said finally. 

ZGF says they expect work on the ICA Pittsburgh project to be completed by the end of 2027. 

The city’s Andy Warhol Museum also recently announced its own $45 million expansion.