Nov 20 2014
Arup, a multidisciplinary engineering and consulting firm with a reputation for delivering innovative and sustainable designs, announced today it joined Harvard University in celebrating the grand opening of the Harvard Art Museums.
The 204,000 SF renovation and expansion project designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Payette, combines the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum under one roof. A public ceremony was held on November 16th to commemorate the event.
Exterior of Harvard Art Museums. photo courtesy of Arup. Copyright Nic Lehoux
"This was an enormously complex project, and one that we could not have completed successfully without the talents of the design teams," said Maureen Donovan, deputy director of the Harvard Art Museums.
Among the multiple and integrated services Arup provided, lighting and environmental controls were a particularly important challenge because museums require unique interior environments to be successful. Arup employed innovative mechanical systems in conjunction with a high performance building envelope to control the internal environmental conditions in the gallery spaces, and worked with existing conditions to devise lighting schemes that would simultaneously highlight and protect sensitive artwork. Additionally, extensive services integration was required to install new systems within the existing framework of the building in order to maintain its original context.
"Arup has thoroughly enjoyed our participation in the project for a number of reasons," said Nigel Nicholls, principal and project director. "It's an incredibly important project to both the museum and architectural communities from a cultural and design perspective. For Arup, it underscores our philosophy of utilizing an integrated design approach to elicit outstanding outcomes. Everything we do has a direct and indirect impact on everything else we do. By integrating our activities in the beginning and tackling the project as a whole, each individual aspect performs more efficiently because of its dependence on every other before it. The Harvard Art Museums project is a collaborative success from this perspective."
The facility provides new and versatile platforms for accessing the collections: an expansive Art Study Center, expanded special exhibition space, and the University Galleries, programmed in consultation with faculty to support specific coursework or in partnership with other Harvard museums. The new exhibition galleries are designed to create places for close engagement with individual works of art—for both the Harvard University community and the general public. The Calderwood Courtyard, the historic heart of the original Fogg Museum, was restored as the central point of circulation in the museums new home. It is open to the public without purchase of admission to the galleries.
The design of the historically-sensitive expansion and renovation also provides new and improved museum quality environmental and lighting conditions in galleries as well as in collection storage, and the world renowned conservation laboratory, the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. Key design features include energy efficient glazed walls, custom timber cladding, preservation of historic masonry walls and a fully glazed roof, for which glazed exterior louvers, triple glazing and internal and external shades are combined to achieve optimal lighting and cooling levels in the conservation and study spaces. Specific Arup services include mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering, lighting design and daylighting, fire and life safety consulting, and sustainability consulting.
As one of the most progressive universities in advancing sustainability, Harvard set a target to reduce university-wide greenhouse gas emissions 20% below a 2006 baseline by the year 2016. Committed to meeting Harvard's goals, Arup worked with the design team to create a high-performance design intended to emit 30% fewer green-house gas emissions per square foot than other existing campus buildings. The museums are targeting LEED Gold certification.
Arup has been involved with a number of projects at Harvard University including the strategic plan for its long-term development, the Science Center addition and renovation, the School of Dental Medicine, the Maxwell Dworkin Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Building, the Smith Campus Center renovation and addition, and Gutman Library, among others. Similarly, it has partnered with Renzo Piano Building Workshop on numerous projects including the Art Institute of Chicago, the California Academy of Sciences, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Ga., and the Paul Klee Museum in Berne, Switzerland; as well as with Payette on the Northeastern University Integrated Engineering and Science Building and Boston University's Center for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering, both currently under design.
Click here to view a four-minute time lapse video of the Harvard Art Museums construction.
About Arup
Arup is the creative force at the heart of many of the world's most prominent projects in the built environment and across industry. Its engineers and consultants deliver innovative projects across the world. Arup opened its first US office in 1985, and now employs 1,100 in the Americas. The firm was founded in 1946 with an enduring set of values that fosters a distinctive culture, intellectual independence and collaborative approach. The people at Arup are driven to find a better way to deliver better solutions for their clients. (www.arup.com)
About the Harvard Art Museums
The Harvard Art Museums, among the world's leading art institutions, comprise three museums (Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler) and four research centers (the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art, the Harvard Art Museums Archives, and the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis). The Fogg Museum includes Western art from the Middle Ages to the present; the Busch-Reisinger Museum is dedicated to the study of art from the German-speaking countries of central and northern Europe, and is the only museum of its kind in North America; and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum is dedicated to Asian, ancient, and Islamic and later Indian art. Together, the collections include approximately 250,000 objects in all media. The Harvard Art Museums are distinguished by the range and depth of their collections, their groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of their staff. Integral to Harvard University and the wider community, the museums and research centers serve as resources for students, scholars, and the public. For more than a century, they have been the nation's premier training ground for museum professionals and are renowned for their seminal role in developing the discipline of art history in the United States. harvardartmuseums.org.