Corita Art Center

Year: 2024 Software: Rhino, Grasshopper, D5, Illustrator, Photoshop

Corita Art Center

The Corita Art Center is an art complex that integrates exhibitions, research, experiences, and art fairs, next to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Serving the Corita Foundation, the space plan allows visitors to explore Corita Kent's artistic career, interspersed with many indoor and outdoor spaces for rest, communication, and experience. The art fair in the front yard reflects Corita Kent's spirit of art accessibility, which also supports the local artists.

Corita艺术中心是一个集展览、研究、体验和艺术市集于一体的艺术综合体，位于洛杉矶南加州大学旁边。

服务于Corita Kent Foundation，综合体内连续的参观路径设计使访客沿着Corita Kent的艺术生涯探索，并穿插着许多室内外的休息、交流和体验空间。前院的艺术市集反映了Corita Kent的大众艺术精神，也支持了当地的艺术家和艺术活动。

Corita Kent (1918-1986), also known as Sister Mary Corita, was an artist with an innovative approach to design and education. Corita’s work reflected her concerns about poverty, racism, and war, and her messages of peace and social justice continue to resonate with audiences today.

More about Corita Kent

Traditional Museum Experience

Proposed Spatial Layout

Linear Circulation

- No Freedom

Central Layout

- No Continuity

CORITA ART CENTER

- For One Artist

- Visit Along Corita's Career

- Multiple Community Spaces

In traditional museum design, there are two typical layouts: linear and central. They are created to serve different exhibition requirements, but both layouts must choose one from "freedom" and "continuity" and sacrifice the other.

At Corita Art Center, a new spatial layout is proposed to have both freedom and continuity. It allows people to explore Corita's art career, and be able to shift out to the community spaces at any point during their journey.

Multiple Outdoor Spaces

18589 square feet of occupiable outdoor spaces including the front yard, courtyard, terrace, and rooftop patio are located on different levels, which serve both visitor path an office level.

The open spaces embellished along the tour path provide people with spiritual and visual rest. These courtyards and terraces are visually interconnected. Tourists can see the space they are about to arrive in advance during their visit, which can stimulate their desire to explore the space. This visual attraction can guide tourists to experience the architecture from different angles. At the end of the journey is a cafe and gift shop, a semi-outdoor space open to the street corner.

Corita Kent's Spiritual Heritage - "Everyone can express their opinions through art."

Corita Kent's Screen Printing Workshop, 1955

Artist Fair

Museum + Art Fair

-Make the art closer to people

-Help the local artists

Corita Kent used screen printing, which is a very accessible art medium that was used for mass printing and copying. In the spirit that everyone can make art and enjoy art, Corita encourages her students to express themselves through art. In the project, the front yard can be transferred to a temporary art fair, which not only allows another way of engaging art but also supports the local artists and USC art students.

Materials

The project uses red terracotta on the facade, which responds to the architecture style of the USC campus. Terracotta is also a recyclable and sustainable material.

Inspired by screen printing silk canvas, the fabric material is used for window shades and canopies.

The structural material is timber. CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) is used on walls, floors, and ceilings. GLT (Glue Laminated Timber) is used on columns, beams, and girders. Although there are curved walls and ceilings, all of them are in single curvature surfaces, which means they can made of bending sheet materials such as wood. The basement parking is in the concrete structure.

Facade

Click Here to See the Detailed Facade Study

The facade is in terracotta, which is a recyclable and sustainable material. The terracotta tiles are made by extrusion, bending(by laying on a cylinder surface), trimming, and firing. All the curved surfaces on the building facade are single curvature surfaces, which means they can be made of bent sheet materials. In this project, a parametric method is designed to panel the facade surfaces and sort the panels by type, which makes estimating the cost easy.

Click Here to See the Detailed Facade Study

Physical Model

Plan