WORKac’s gut renovation and reconceptualization of the Blaffer Art Museum has allowed the institution to fulfill its promise to act as a gateway between university and city. A preeminent contemporary art museum set in the University of Houston’s central campus, the Blaffer was originally designed to be entered through an internal courtyard. WORKac’s series of imaginative and economical interventions to the building’s facade, circulation patterns, and exterior spaces create striking public presence and new connectivity.

The design opens the previously blank north side of the building with a new public entrance, marked by a triangular concrete “wallumn” (wall/column) that graphically advertises the new entry condition. It supports a grand staircase, which reroutes circulation from the center of the building to the façade, allowing for the expansion and diversification of the museum’s galleries. A new common area with a café stitches together the pavilion and the back courtyard, allowing the public to move between city and campus via the museum, even if they are not planning to visit. This strategy has increased the number of annual visitors to the museum fivefold.