Building into the landscape

Crystal Bridges Museum emerges from northwest Arkansas hills

By Candy McCampbell

The creek cutting through a wooded Arkansas hillside that gives the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art its name is also disappearing during construction of the complex.

The 100,000-sq-ft museum near downtown Bentonville spans a ravine on the property and the creek was an environmental problem waiting to happen. Founded by Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation, the museum is adamant about keeping the site as pristine as possible, to the extent that only about seven acres of the 100-acre property are being used for the complex and a road leading to it.

“Our team – the client, the designer and the builder – decided the best way to handle the creek is to get it out of the way,” says Don Adams, project manager for the Linbeck Group LP/Nabholz Construction Co. joint venture general contractor.

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Workers constructed a diversion, with a valve control system, that sends the creek underground before it resurfaces and continues along its route.

The valve control had a triple payoff:

• The contractor doesn’t have to worry about construction debris falling into the creek.
• He gains additional construction area.
• The valve system will remain and the creek can be diverted, if needed, in the future.

The project is a team effort by the architects, engineers, contractors and owners, who communicate and work together “to figure out what is right, what will work,” Adams says.

The $50 million project includes galleries, library, auditorium, meeting rooms, offices, outdoor event area, sculpture garden and walking trails. It is >> scheduled to open in fall 2009.

Use of wood in the buildings was dictated by the site, says Hugh Phillips, principal in charge of the project for Moshe Safdie & Associates, the Boston-based architect.

“It follows from the site … deep woods, down in the valley, and water running through it,” he says.

One goal is to keep as much of the property undisturbed as possible.

“The idea was to draw a hard line around the site and to make sure the contractor doesn’t cross that line,” Phillips says. “That is unusual for a project that effectively is out in the open like this.” The construction road will become the permanent road, and laydown and construction parking areas are about a quarter-mile away.

Some of the walnut and pecan trees cut are being milled and stored offsite for use in the buildings while other trees are chipped for use on trails.

The tight work area also mandated careful blasting for the building sites, one of which is an underground parking facility for 250 cars.

The visitor orientation and dining building and one of the galleries will be on suspension bridges spanning a pond created by the creek.

“The roofs of these two bridge buildings are sitting on suspension cables,” Phillips says. “The buildings have no structural columns and the roofs kind of float over the floor space.”

The suspension cables are supported by concrete abutments on either side of the pond.

The complex will have several glass walls, using high-performance, low-E glass, Phillips says.

West-facing walls will have the addition of a frit, or a pattern of 1/8-in ceramic dots, over one layer of the double-pane system.

“We try to work with the curators of the museum to bring as much natural light into the galleries as possible,” Phillips adds. “We tend to use a significant number of skylights.” A blade or roller shade system will allow the triple-pane-glass to be adjusted to admit the appropriate light.

Heavy-duty HVAC systems are required in the museum.

“The most demanding areas are the gallery spaces themselves,” Phillips says.

Art curators want only small variations in temperature and need 50% humidity year-round, meaning air must be humidified in winter and dehumidified in summer.

“It takes a sophisticated system to do it,” he says.

The gallery floors will be maple, following the Safdie preference for hardwoods, while offices and nongallery areas will be carpeted.

High-traffic areas will be stone and a search is ongoing to find a local source, Phillips says.

Exterior walls will be a combination of architectural concrete, requiring precision in form-building, and bands of wood. The wood likely will be ipe, a dense Brazilian product that is frequently chosen for exterior applications.

Most of the buildings have curved rooflines, either concave or convex, that will be of copper panels and skylights.

The building housing the offices, some galleries, the library and auditorium will have a green roof, with shrubs and other plantings. The purpose is to “soften the buildings against the landscape,” Phillips says.