Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/ en-us Design Observer Group 2013-04-18T13:13:39-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0 http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2013-04-18T13:13:39-05:00
These drawings are an instructive rebuke for anyone who thinks the Apple HQ differs from the Pentagon / 1950s SOM approach, and weirdly, seeing the old and new site plans together, make the prior strip-mall-esque HP campus actually seem like the more urban approach, ripe for infill.

www.cupertino.org/inc/pdf/apple/FloorPlan_Cross_Section.pdf
www.cupertino.org/inc/pdf/apple/Site_Plan-Landscaping.pdf




]]> http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2012-08-03T13:48:19-05:00
The museum has many views toward the outside, with large windows in most of the galleries and at the end of the Canyon. There are fewer windows in the dinosaur gallery, shown in photos.

I don't think the building mimics the surrounding natural landscape, but interprets it. The material choices are referential and fairly subtle but don't make the mistake of trying to match the ground, stone or plants. And the use of the TIN software to create the exterior angles mediates between the natural landscape and the built landscape. What you also can't see in these photos is the ordinary flat-roofed office park buildings on either side of the museum, and all down the boulevard that leads up to it.

The land-use issues Mr. Downer raises came up on my visit, and were much debated in the local press (part of the museum's cost was paid for by a bond issue). The museum also had to prepare an Environment Impact Statement. The trails that wrap around the museum are still open to the public, as they always were. There are doors off a number of the museum galleries that allow access on to patios that connect to those trails. You do need to scan a barcode on your ticket to get inside. It may be my eastern bias speaking, but percentage-wise there did not seem to be a great loss of access to undeveloped (and undevelopment-adjacent) land relative to before the museum's construction -- 15 years ago or a generation ago is another matter.

The museum is indeed part of a large development complex that is the definition of suburban sprawl. It is the best piece of architecture in that complex, and also likely one of the last ones. In that context, it is a very fancy brick. But I do think it is a building that points to ways architecture in Salt Lake City could be more responsive, ambitious, and regional. Sarah George's comment about the red sandstone being imported from India seemed telling to me. And the city's Moshe Safdie library looks like all the other Moshe Safdie building's everywhere: big shape, hot atrium.

I am with you on the parking. ]]> http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2012-08-02T15:30:26-05:00 http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2012-08-02T15:14:15-05:00
- Built on a site that not 15 years ago was au natural with the exception of foot trails;

- Features a parking complex with a footprint as large as its completely-synthetic-with-no-bearing-at-all-to-the-natural-world-"landscape";

- And is, in terms of the greater project of suburban sprawl devouring the real landscape west, just another brick in the wall.

One can imagine the people who, not a generation ago, used to run fairly free in those scrubby foothills now being asked to show ID and pay admission to learn about their "landscape"; isn't it time for these curatorial illusions to be popped, not inflated?]]> http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2012-08-02T13:42:40-05:00 http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2012-08-02T11:03:12-05:00 http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2012-08-01T16:06:42-05:00
]]> http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2012-08-01T16:05:24-05:00 http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/hiking-the-museum/35288/#comments 2012-07-30T18:13:40-05:00