ECA’s mission nurtures cultural literacy through community engagement with art. Taking this charge to heart, we explored ways to create a highly engaging space by blurring the lines between the production of art and the community participation with it. Rather than a traditional white gallery space with art installed within it, the spirit of ECA calls for more of an open and interactive workshop environment. How would it be possible for the artistic process and the process of interacting with it be two halves of a greater whole? How could the form of the space directly communicate its essence –just as onomatopoeic words do?

We were one of six firms selected by Emeryville Center for the Arts to take part in this exploratory design process. Please contact us for more detailed information.

To begin the design process, we first looked to the qualities already present in the existing space.

We wandered the neighborhood to identify the creative impulses already percolating in the vibrant community.
We imagined a series of community characters who might engage with the new Center for the Arts.
We then matched the characters with art forms, spaces, and times of day and assembled them into a flipbook 'toy'.
We wandered the neighborhood to identify the creative impulses already percolating in the vibrant community.

By playing with the flipbook, new and unexpected possible combinations of people, activity, spaces and moments of day and night emerge. We wanted to help the Center for the Arts begin to expand their ideas about the possible interactions among the community, the artistic programs, the space and its use.

In the end we proposed three main architectural strategies for the renovation. First, a series of 'stages' that support art installation, performance, and community gathering. These include The Porch, The Studio, the ECA Café. From the interior, they act as framing devices back to the city. From the exterior, they create windows into ECA.
Second, were the 'wrappers', held in place by the pins necessary for the seismic strengthening of the existing brick walls. A series of translucent panels on the exterior display of art of the interior.
Third, is a series of curated Skylight Galleries. We proposed that each year, for ten years, a new Skylight Gallery be constructed based on a design chosen through an annual community competition.
In the end we proposed three main architectural strategies for the renovation. First, a series of 'stages' that support art installation, performance, and community gathering. These include The Porch, The Studio, the ECA Café. From the interior, they act as framing devices back to the city. From the exterior, they create windows into ECA.

The resulting Onomatopoeic Space is meant to be visceral, somewhat profane, and bursting at the seams with creative utterances –WHAM! POW! SPLAT!