With its transparent intrigue and emotive materiality, the Aspen Art Museum is a work of architectural delight whose interiors showcase contemporary collections from around the world. To extend the sense of wonder beyond the building envelope, the streetscape was elegantly designed by Bluegreen to celebrate the landscape context of Aspen, engage the community, and provide highly functional bioretention in the urban realm – the first such endeavor in Aspen. The result is a seamless integration of architecture, performative landscape, and art that elevates the human experience of a shared cultural gem. Inspired by the reconceptualization of structure in the built environment, simple, honest materials that are true to their origins, yet inspired in their applications are incorporated. From the selection of a native plant palette that references regional assemblages, to wooden bench paneling that evokes a liquid quality, landscape materials and detailing at the Aspen Art Museum are contextually relevant, and aesthetically evocative. Intended to endure, the materials exude a sense of timelessness that is translated throughout the landscape. Designed to withstand shifts in museum culture, installations and seasonal variations, landscape architectural elements define a series of adaptable spaces that foreground art and interaction while connecting the architecture back to its context. Plantings and landscape structures bring the Aspen Art Museum to a human scale and present a public threshold from streetscape to cultural center. Pervious paving wraps the building welcoming community interaction in what feels like an extension of the architecture. Strategically placed curb-cuts invite stormwater into lushly planted basins which serve as the performative underbelly of an elegantly crafted series of ribbon-like seat walls that fold down and enclose mini-urban cells. Composed of a mixture of highly-functioning ingredients, the basins will serve as a living laboratory for performance metrics related to urban stormwater management over time.
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