a+t architecture publishers

Museum Plaza rethinks conventional attitudes towards property development. Culture is placed physically and spiritually at the project’s center. To support the capital and operational costs of a 3,700 m2 museum, a development of over 1 40,000 m2 is required. To avoid over-saturating Louisville’s market with any single commercial program, its uses are mixed, including luxury  condominiums, hotel, offices, loft apartments, and retail.

Building development convention would typically position the public program at street level and the profit-making towers above. This strategy is not possible at Museum Plaza: the site would isolate any ground-level public program and position the towers implausibly close to each other. To liberate these conditions, the plinth of public program is elevated twenty stories aloft and the towers evenly distributed above and below.

Within the ‘Island’ of public program, a rare synergy between commerce and culture occurs. Unusual proximities enable the contemporary art space to overcome the banal specter of museum flexibility.

The towers, in contrast, are platonic, and their areas and proportions are dictated by efficiency ratios and financing. To maximize rents and sale prices, the luxury condos and offices above and the hotel and loft apartments below are optimally positioned for views, circulation, and structural efficiency.

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