富兰克林与马歇尔学院新视觉艺术大楼丨Steven Holl Architects

Steven Holl designs "concave response" lighting for new visual arts building

"Nightview" of Steven Holl Architects' new visual arts center. Image: Steven Holl Architects

"We don't have a single 'style,'"

Steven Holl

explained in reference to his firm's new four level, 35,000 square foot Visual Arts Building commissioned for the

Franklin & Marshall College

. "We always try to shape a unique experience, and our approach is the same with this project. We look to create something of this place, to inspire future students."

Influenced heavily by the numerous hundred-year-old-plus trees that occupy the site, the Visual Arts Building is conceived as rising like a kite into the arboreal canopy and features a glass-enclosed forum on the ground floor that allows a clear view from the building's campus side of Buchanan Park.

A variety of faculty and advanced student studios, as well as a lecture hall/film screening auditorium and dedicated film labs, will compliment the project's classroom space.

In addition to geothermal heating and cooling, the project features an inventive, noteworthy take on lighting. In this case, the "building’s light profile is a concave response to the large diameters of the campus’ trees" according to the firm's press release.