With the Sundance Film Festival beginning this week, many eyes are turned on Park City, UT and one of the central venues for the 10 day event - the Kimball Art Center. The historic arts center is in need of a major renovation and upgrade, so they asked 5 incredible architecture firms to come up with sustainable and innovative designs. Over the last couple weeks, we featured all 5 proposals that run the gamut from soaring translucent towers to modern facades that make beautiful use of natural materials - and now we want to know which one is your favorite! So who is it gonna be - BIG, Brooks + Scarpa, Sparano + Mooney Architecture, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien Architects, or Will Bruder + Partners?
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BIG’s Twisting Timber Eco Tower
Denmark-based BIG took inspiration from historic mining structures in Park City to design this twisting timber tower. They combined clean, modern lines with rustic timber to create a daylight-filled space that takes great pains to be energy-efficient.
Brooks + Scarpa’s Cloud-Like Tower
LA-based Brooks + Scarpa designed an airy, cloud-like sculpture to top the renovation of the Kimball Art Center. The proposal features lots of daylighting, natural ventilation, and plenty of public event space.
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Outlaw design rides into town, a month late – now what?
Butch and Sundance must surely be spinning in their unmarked Bolivian graves at the sight of Park City, Utah, home of lovable outlaws and independent film makers, rolling out the red carpet to a handful of jet-set starchitects.
If you were one of the millions of designers out there with a go-for-it attitude, a creative outlook and some serious time on your hands, you might have gotten fired up when The Kimball Art Center announced it’s plans for expanding. I sure did. After all, the Kimball sits at the center of historic Park City on an underdeveloped lot that’s crying out for something great to come along and transform the City.
And you might have been just as dismayed as I was to find out that only five concepts would be considered in the invitation-only ‘competition’.
To be fair, there are good reasons for this kind of approach, and the people in charge did an outstanding job of pulling the whole thing off. But do big names guarantee the best design in an era when, with a single keystroke, you can tap into the unplumbed depths of a world-wide pool of creativity and talent for free?
It’s over now, and in a bizarre ‘twist’, the search for a big name produced the name B.I.G., a Danish firm incubated at Rem Koolhaas’ Dutch Office for Metropolitan Architecture. B.I.G., with 85 architects and designers on staff and projects all over the world, has been winning every commission in sight lately with the light dusting of fun they sprinkle over their Soviet-Bloc-Brutalist origins. In case you missed it, their winning design in Park City is the Lincoln-Log-gone-sideways fort where, for the first time in history, Davy Crocket meets Joseph Stalin at the corner of Heber and Main.
Yes, I am getting a little carried away here, and I’d gladly admit to being a bad sport who doesn’t like losing…except I didn’t lose, because, along with every other juiced up, unknown designer on the planet, I was never in the running.
Is this how the West was won? Did Butch and Sundance surrender when it was two guys against the entire Bolivian Army? No, they saddled up and rode out, guns blazing right into the history books. So why should a little thing like not being invited, and going up against the biggest gun in town, keep me from running alongside the limo?
I thought it would be fun and informative to go through the process as if I had been invited to compete. It was. On my own dime, and in my own time, I too came up with a design for the new Kimball Art Center. All it cost me was four weeks, $1,000, and a broken heart, because, as usual, I fell in love with my own design.
So now what? The contest ended a month ago and the confetti is cold on the floor. The winner is wondering what they’ll do with their $1.5 million fee, and I’ve got a kick-ass design that’s all dressed up with no where to go.
You can see it at:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2901294297751.2125115.1422240355&type=3&l=b541bfbcf0
You know if BIG’s Twisting Timber Eco Tower wins this Bid . . . this Labor of Love Project may qualify this Location as a Historical Landmark! The Fact that BIG plans on using Reclaimed Trestlewood from Park City’s Historical Railroad Past may possibly earn a Landmark Recording Number! I would check into this if I were you as you may be passing up a wonderful opportunity!
You know, there is a pretty good chance that if BIG’s Twisting Timber Eco Tower wins this Bid . . . this Labor of Love Project just might qualify this Location as a Historical Landmark! Yes, the fact that BIG plans to use Reclaimed Trestlewood from Park City’s Historical Railroad Past might be grounds for a Landmark Recording Number! I would check into this Opportunity if I were you!
The first time, I voted with my eyes. Now, I’m gonna reinforce my first vote with my heart and my mind. BIG has wonderfully infused the Past, Present, and Future into their Labor of Love appropriately called Twisting Timber Eco Tower. The name is short and sweet. The idea is short and sweet. The Project is short and sweet. This is KISS and this is all about keeping things short and sweet and simple when working with Extreme Mother Nature. Using Reclaimed Trestlewood from Train Tracks, Solar Power, Rainwater Collection, High Performing Thermal Envelope, and Windows/Skylights is the epitome of History Past meets Eco Friendly Future. At night, this Eco Tower shines like a Lighthouse Beacon inviting the Locals and the World into it’s Historical Arms, once again, with a hug to withstand the test of time!
The comments from “Skibumdedum” reflect a lot of my thoughts on the project. If this were a ski lodge, some of the others would be acceptable, however, for an art center
My vote is Cloud Tower by Brooks + Scarpa. Best wishes on selecting the right design!
The Brooks + Scarpa design provides an appealing and pleasant feel for the modernization. The “Cloud Tower” outshines the others for me, after careful review and consideration. I don’t think the Twisting Timber does it for me, not sure why but just can’t get the same feeling I do for the ‘Cloud Tower’. Good luck on selecting the best design.
In looking at the images, the two designs for grandiose towers looming over the street make absolutely no sense in a small town like this…. one of the other three are better, it seems to be about choosing the most appropriate materials and image among those options, each with some potential. For raw beauty, if that counts for anything anymore, it would be the Sparano & Mooney design.
I have to go with the Cloud Tower by Brooks + Scarpa.
I Like BIG’s Twisting Timber too, and agree that it looks like a Ski Lodge; and if I wanted a nature “Rustic ski lodge” I’d choose Twisted Timber. However, for an Art Center, the Cloud Tower looks “Open & Inviting” to the public. The area of Cloud Tower is open, inviting (Looks spacious and bright), making allot more use of its footprint, and looks like a friendly experience. As far as looking like a mountain resort building, I think the Brooks + Scarpa “Cloud Tower” resembles a Snow Cap on the Mountain. It definitely makes better use of natural light, and I can only imagine how gorgeous its canopy would look illuminated at night (A glowing beacon of fresh snow on the mountain). My vote is Cloud Tower by Brooks + Scarpa. “Can I get a free lift ticket now?”
A mountain town artistic abstract is screaming to be done representative of it’s people,architecture and topography one comes close. No question they are creative however I believe they miss the mark.
I liked them ALL! They ALL have Special Features that make each one an amazing work of Art . . . to be absorbed by ALL the Senses of Mankind and yet still embrace Mother Nature! Of the five entries and taking into consideration the words – Green Design, Art Center, Park City, and Utah . . . I voted for BIG’s Twisting Timber Eco Tower! Everyone knows that Utah has several awesome Mountain Skiing Locals . . . and BIG’s Twisting Timber Eco Tower says “Mountain Skiing” all over it! My second choice would be Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects’ Box of Sky and Shadow as the colors of this Green Design seem to flow into and out of the Surrounding Mountains like the ebb and flow of Ocean Tides!
This is not BIG’s best proposal. They keep taking pieces of older projects, and I’m getting a little bit tired about that. Brooks + Scarpa looks awful…I think the more serious proposal is the Sparano + Mooney´s one. They are showing the coldness and beauty of the place, also also you can see it working with the surroundings.
Of the five entries, I’ve concluded that the form and the luminosity (evenings) of Brooks + Scarpa’s entry would be the sole design that provides to visitors and passerbys alike, an exciting and unusual visual–and, in this instance, even a “gravity tug”–an extra bonus that affects the movement, flow and even the spirit of those within eyesight of the Center.
Definitely provoking!
Brooks + Scarpa best one