The main gallery structure was developed from a pair of existing buildings that had previously housed a martial arts studio, a car repair shop, and a specialty foods store. WHY recast the structures as two soaring, skylit galleries of equal size and scale, paying homage to the site’s industrial roots by embracing irregular spaces and revealing structural elements and mechanics at the ceiling level. In the gallery spaces, the arching bow truss structure of the roof is artfully exposed, with the woodwork stained gray to complement the concrete floors. The experience of the spaces is defined by an emphasis on proportion and light, tempered by the combination of refined minimal detailing and the raw exposure of the building’s inner workings.

The program for the original gallery and the new expansion was developed in collaboration with the WHY Landscape Workshop, envisaging how the site could work as a whole. A fractured wall is imagined to wrap the site, creating an inner sanctum where unusual landscapes activate the limits of the site. An aluminum totem by Evan Holloway is installed alongside sculptural cacti and drought-resistance planting, Wille Boone’s ‘The Three Fates’ (2020) gather at the base of the terraced-stair, surrounded by succulents and otherworldly plantlife.