Arkansas Arts Center firm details flaws

Better lighting, gallery flow, use of park on drawing board

Juliane Wolf (left) and Angela Peckham, both with the architectural firm Studio Gang, discuss their ideas for renovation of the Arkansas Arts Center on Monday.
Juliane Wolf (left) and Angela Peckham, both with the architectural firm Studio Gang, discuss their ideas for renovation of the Arkansas Arts Center on Monday.

The coming Arkansas Arts Center overhaul must address several existing issues that complicate visits -- including "mystery doors" and "buried knowledge" -- as it adds new features, the project's design team said Monday.

The $60 million-plus makeover will expand the museum by up to one-third of its current size, but it must also tie together different museum elements introduced during previous expansion and remodeling efforts, the museum's director said.

Wish-list ideas emerged as the national architectural firm Studio Gang assessed the challenges and opportunities to the museum's board of trustees at a meeting before it starts early design work next month. The firm has spent four months studying the building's layout, how it aligns with its MacArthur Park surroundings and improvements needed to make it user friendly.

Critiques quickly mounted but with a sense of potential.

"Apologies," design principal Juliane Wolf said midway through a list of what needs to be fixed. "This is actually a great institution. ... I don't mean to sound so negative, but I just want to point out what we have been doing in this phase and the potential of addressing these things in the next phase."

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Among the criticisms, according to Wolf: Two entrances to the museum don't connect well, often confusing guests. Lighting in the lobby is inadequate. Its library is hidden. A loading dock obstructs what should be the primary approach to the museum. Pathways through the museum are so confusing that sometimes visitors unknowingly bypass galleries.

"Visitors miss certain galleries altogether, all the time," Wolf said while a sketched drawing of the museum's layout, labeled "mystery doors," shone on a projection screen. "Because it's very hard to know, 'Have I been there? Have I not been there? Where is the flow through the galleries?'"

A patchwork heating and air conditioning system treats specific rooms rather than the building as a whole, and that fix is going to consume a portion of budget, Wolf said.

Looking forward, Wolf spoke of an expanded lecture hall, with glass panes inviting sunlight and gazes from people in MacArthur Park. The upgraded museum could spill out into the park and along an outdoors art loop. Families could make use of a new studio-based program. Wolf also suggested making the museum's library and a drawing research center accessible and visible to visitors. And the flow through the museum must be better.

"Before it goes to the beauty shop, it has to go to the doctor," Arts Center Executive Director Todd Herman said. "It's going to the doctor. We're going to fix what ails it. Then we're going to overlay on that some aesthetics that are going to make it even better."

Discussions were preliminary. Starting next month, Chicago- and New York-based Studio Gang and its Little Rock partner firm Polk Stanley Wilcox will begin the year-plus process to design the renovation and expansion.

The architects expect to present a concept to the board by this fall before moving into rough sketches and then fleshing out the details, with museum officials given authority to approve the plans at each step.

The Arts Center has not yet finalized a contract with Studio Gang and is instead working off a letter of intent that authorizes the museum to compensate the firm for ongoing work. The Arts Center's nonprofit foundation is paying the bills so far but expect to be repaid once the bonds are sold, officials have said.

Officials will design the project in line with an estimated $46 million construction budget, to be paid for with general obligation bonds backed by an increase to the city's hotel tax and with private contributions collected by the museum's nonprofit foundation.

Herman, who said the total cost including architects' and consultants' fees will be between $60 million to $65 million, said the budget will come into better focus after the bonds are sold, perhaps by the end of the year.

Construction is projected to begin in late 2019. Herman said the goal is to add 22,000-32,000 square feet of new space to the 108,000-square-foot building.

"We now know much more about this building than we did prior to this process," Herman said. "I think that when Studio Gang and Polk Stanley Wilcox get to work with all of the other consultants on refining all of these high-level ideas and all of these goals into tangible physical spaces and designs, it's going to be very exciting."

Metro on 06/13/2017

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Juliane Wolf (left) with the Studio Gang architectural firm speaks Monday at the Arkansas Arts Center. During a lunchtime meeting, the firm made a presentation to the Arts Center board about renovation ideas.

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