Completed 2022
15,000 square feet
Renovation

Photography Credit: Raj Das

2024 American Architecture Award

Building on a strategic master plan for campus-wide improvements, this renovation of an existing private art museum for the Weyerhaeuser family collection was timed to coincide with the museum's 50th anniversary celebration. The heavy timber framed building, with its distinctive curved roofline was designed in 1969 as a celebration of wood to honor the family's heritage.

OEA was hired in 2019 to create a more transparent and welcoming main entrance, improve and expand visitor services, increase gallery and collection storage space, provide adequate administrative space, and perform building-wide code and accessibility upgrades. The most visible improvement to the museum is its new entrance which transforms the previously dark, opaque entrance to a transparent, welcoming new first impression for visitors featuring a new custom-fabricated, freestanding, welded steel plate canopy structure and new entry plaza. The canopy was designed to be as visually light as possible so as not to compete with the overall aesthetic of the original building. Fixed heavy canvas shades on the entrance's interior were replaced with a slatted wood screen which, along with the canopy,  helps mitigate the museum's challenging west orientation. Visitor services were expanded with a more gracious lobby, a new information desk, new accessible public restrooms and improved access to  gallery space. Renovations also include a new HVAC system, a new sprinkler system and new lighting designed to showcase the undulating exposed timber roof.