FIU’s Frost Art Museum: A high-tech architectural jewel

November 21, 12:31 AMMiami Travel ExaminerGeorge Leposky

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The new Frost Art Museum on the FIU campus
© George Leposky

The new $19 million, 46,000-square-foot Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, which opens to the public on Saturday, November 29, is an architectural jewel that employs advanced design methods and technology to save energy and guard the works of art inside against hurricanes.

The building’s luminous exterior surface sparkles in the sun. Clad in pink-grey bush-hammered Chinese granite, it has a double wall for energy conservation and hurricane protection. A three-story, L-shaped structure, it stands beside and curves around a lagoon. A large multi-trunked ficus tree that previously grew on the site was spared during construction.

Fiberglass “petals” redirect
the natural light from a skylight
© George Leposky

Visitors enter the museum through a three-story atrium with floor-to-ceiling glass walls on the east and west sides, offering views of the campus and the lagoon. Rising through the atrium is a cantilevered staircase of exposed, painted steel with Italian marble steps and stainless steel railings – a functional sculpture as well as a way for visitors to move from floor to floor.

Because the museum is in a low-lying area that could flood during a hurricane, “all of the art is upstairs on the second and third floors, just in case,” notes architect Yann R. Weymouth, AIA, senior vice president and director of design for hok (formerly Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum).
 

Cantilevered staircase and
tapestry in the atrium
© George Leposky

Natural light

The Frost has a total of 10,000 square feet of exhibit space in nine galleries, five of which are suffused with natural light from skylights in the ceiling.  It recreates the conditions in which many artists worked and saw their own creations.

“We’re in Florida,” Weymouth says. “Sunshine is what we’ve got. To protect the art, it’s reduced significantly and carefully filtered, with no ultraviolet.

“Beneath the skylights, we’ve installed a light-diffusion system with Fiberglass ‘petals’ that bounce the light to the walls. In natural light, the paintings glow.  When a cloud goes over the sun, you can see them change.”

Sam Doggart, senior vice president of contracting firm Skanska USA Building Inc., a subsidiary of the Swedish firm Skanska AB, says designing the petals entailed asking surfboard shops, “How would you build this, and what would it cost?”  When the panels arrived at the museum, “they weren’t right,” he says.  “The manufacturer couldn’t maintain consistency. They needed the right sheen, texture, look. We redid every one to meet the standard.”

A ‘James Bond museum’

Carol Damian, director and chief curator, calls the Frost “a James Bond museum.” It has unobtrusive built-in speakers on the walls, electrical equipment hidden behind wall panels, and small square lids in the floor above outlets for electricity and Internet access. “You won’t find wires and cords covered with electrical tape here,” she says.

“We tried to hide the technical stuff as much as possible,” Weymouth says. Instead of the standard air-conditioning ducts, registers, and returns, air enters the Frost galleries through a linear gap between the top of the walls and the ceiling, and exits at the base of the skylights.

Although the building was not designed specifically to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards of the U.S. Green Building Council, Weymouth says it is “super well insulated, has carbon dioxide monitoring, and many other things that would be needed to qualify for LEED certification.” 

When you go

The Frost Art Museum is at 10975 SW 17th St. on FIU’s University Park campus. Located on a broad pedestrian mall called Avenue of the Arts, the Frost is north of the university’s Wertheim Performing Arts Center and west of the Blue parking garage.

During its opening celebration from Saturday, November 29, through Sunday, December 7, the Frost will welcome visitors daily from 10 AM to 5 PM. Thereafter, normal opening hours will be 10 AM to 5 PM Tuesday through Saturday, and noon to 5 PM Sunday, closed Monday and on legal holidays. The main museum phone number is 305-348-2890.