UC Davis Chooses Designer for new Shrem Museum of Art

DAVIS, Calif. — The new Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Museum Art on the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) will revive the arts in the Central Valley while the building itself will feature distinctive design gestures to the area’s agricultural and natural vibrancy.

Lead architect So-Il, based in New York, will work with San Francisco-based Bohlin Cywinski Jackson on the $30 million project to construct the 29,000-square-foot museum, which is expected to break ground next year. Construction will be headed by Whiting-Turner with offices in Sacramento, Calif.

At the center of the design is the museum’s Grand Canopy concept. The 50,000-square-foot permeable canopy is the signature design element of the project, according to Florian Idenburg, director at So-Il.

“The design inherits the idea of diverse landscapes, textures, and colors stitched together. Like the Central Valley, the landscape under the canopy becomes shaped and activated by changing light and seasons,” Idenburg said. “Catalyzing exploration and curiosity, the canopy produces constantly varying silhouettes and profiles as visitors move through the site. Under the canopy, the site forms a continuous landscape, tying it in with its context.”

Designed to mimic the quilted agrarian landscape that surrounds the site, Idenburg said, the design is meant to be both practical and philosophical.

The steel grand canopy will weave from indoor to outdoor spaces of the museum, providing interconnected, yet distinct, interior and exterior spaces.

“The distinct shape of this open roof presents a new symbol for the campus. The canopy extends over the site, blurring its edges, and creating a sensory landscape of activities and scales,” Idenburg said. “It works in two important ways: first, to generate a field of experimentation, an infrastructure, and stage for events; and second, as an urban device that creates a new focus of activity and center of gravity on campus. The canopy transforms the site into a field of diverse spaces.”

The canopy, which will illuminate at nightfall, will be visible from I-80. Such a bold design will make a statement visible to central California visitors as well as those who visit the UC Davis campus each day. The new Shrem Museum of Art will create a new hub for students, staff and visitors to incite conversations of art and culture, according to Idenburg.

“A campus museum, like a pavilion or community center, functions as a gathering place for a university. But unlike a pavilion or community center, a campus museum inherently puts culture at the center of that gathering place and at the center of the conversation,” Idenburg said. “One of our goals for the new design at the UC Davis Shrem Museum of Art was to allow the museum, through its open and innovative design, to be an attractor of activity and a new center of gravity on campus.”

The designers are seeking to achieve LEED Platinum certification on the project, currently estimated to be complete in 2016.

Often over shadowed by the region’s agricultural dynamism, Idenburg believes the Central Valley is an idyllic and symbolic choice to explore the ever-changing artistry soon to come at the UC Davis campus.

“The Central Valley is a landscape of production and growth, and landscape of becoming. Our aim is that the spaces under the Grand Canopy provide a similar sense of empowerment for students,” Idenburg said. “In this sense, Davis, Calif., is an ideal setting for a museum and will introduce a new way of experiencing art. The Central Valley breathes a spirit of optimism.”