Kimball Art Center

Copenhagen-based BIG’s new addition to the Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah, expands exhibition space for the center, which serves as both a community hub and a theater for Sundance House, a screening venue for the 10-day Sundance Film Festival. “They wanted a landmark, but it [Park City] is, at the same time, a very tight-knit community,” says project leader Leon Rost. “We really needed to find a way to resonate with the history.” The addition comprises two stacked gallery spaces that can be used as screening rooms during the festival. The lower volume is oriented along the original city grid, but the upper volume is angled toward Heber Avenue, the newer gateway to the city. The addition’s walls are formed from stacked timbers—salvaged from a defunct trestle that crossed, and then collapsed into, the Great Salt Lake—that twist to accommodate the shift. “It has a textural quality,” Rost says of the wood. The building is targeting LEED Platinum, and has an expected completion date of 2015.