This week, the University of California Santa Cruz selected Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects to design its new Institute of the Arts and Sciences building, a 30,000-sf facility that will function for academic and museum purposes.
The planned site is a natural landscape among redwood trees with views over Monterey Bay, a site that the architects have called “one of the most beautiful they have ever worked on.”
“They’re avoiding monumental gestures and monumental scale and showing a real sensitivity to the landscape,” said the institute’s founding director John Weber during an interview with archpaper.com. “That seemed appropriate. You can’t dominate that site. It’s too dramatic.”
Archdaily reports that designs will be finalized in the coming months along with fundraising efforts to finance the estimated cost of $32-$40 million.
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