The site is a concrete wall that winds from outside the building through to the inside. The wall, modeled by the architect on a G-clef, is designed to announce the center’s function as museum and school for the arts; the wall, is cut by windows and doorways and stairs as it winds through the building, joining exhibition-spaces to classrooms to offices; the wall starts, outside, from a brick-paved spiral on the ground.

The proposal brings the outside inside; it brings the ground up onto what’s built on the ground.

Starting at the brick-paved spiral, the ground is gradually raised up off the ground: on each side a glass retaining wall, slanted inward, holds the earth back, brings the earth up and forward – a wall of earth rises diagonally, following the spiral and hugging the concrete wall, sandwiching it. The earth wall takes to the concrete wall and is carried along with it into the building. The earth wall keeps spreading over the concrete wall until, at the end, it rises above it.

The earth wall follows the peculiarities of the concrete wall and the spaces it goes through: when the concrete wall splits and wings out at a central staircase, the earth wall shifts from one wing to the other – in a classroom with cabinets, the earth wall is squeezed behind the cabinets – when the earth wall passes over doorways and windows in the concrete wall, cuts are made in the concrete wall, according to its diagonal orientation, that correspond to and at the same time collide with the openings in the concrete wall.

The earth wall is a ground to use and be part of: a section swings out, at the bottom, to form a bench of earth – a niche is cut out, making a seat inside the earth. The earth wall is usable like any other wall: paintings, for example, might be hung on the wall, or in the cuts within the wall.

Contractor: Saunders Construction, Inc., Colorado
Glass Contractor: Rocky Mountain Solar Glass, Inc., Colorado
Geological Consultant: Steve Schwochow, Colorado