WORKac has achieved international recognition for architectural projects that re-invent the relationship between urban and natural environments. Founded by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, the firm’s award-winning work includes the Centre de Conferences in Libreville, Gabon and the New Holland Island Cultural Center in St Petersburg, Russia. WORKac recently completed the first Edible Schoolyard in Brooklyn and re-imagined the future of work for the Wieden+Kennedy offices in Manhattan.
Last year the University of California, Davis invited three architectsto compete for the chance to design their new $30 million art museum, slated to open in 2016. The competition was a design-build affair, with each entrant being asked to pair up with a contractor and submit a holistic design. For those who missed it, SO - IL were announced yesterday as the winners of the competition.
Here we present one of two runner-up submissions, this one from WORKac. The concept revolves around creating a distinctive beacon, which would be a centerpoint for an overlap between art, higher-education, and everyday-life. The parallelogram form is intended to create a dynamic space which creates opportunities for interplay with the proposed landscape and surrounding area. Inside a collection of formal and informal, open and intimate are arranged along two axes, pinned together with a bright common space.
Read the architects description after the break...
