Drawing, Sketch of Entry Interior

Studio Gang’s concern with architecture serving a societal need as well as the topographical origin of design is no better exemplified than in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Located in a forested section of Kalamazoo College, this center was designed to engage in conferences and discussions about how to create a more just society. The trefoil structure derives from the topography: one side faces an old-growth grove of trees, the second looks to the college campus, and the third faces a residential neighborhood. The gently curving walls suggest the convocation to take place within. The building’s construction is also based in the land. Studio Gang revived an old nineteenth-century masonry technique that uses local white cedar logs laid in a mortar bed. This type of sustainable construction keeps costs down and serves to insulate the building. The structure’s design development is conveyed in six drawings including an early plan for the structure’s three-part focus, the development of the plan, and three views of the building from the exterior. Also included in this gift is a stencil and print out of one of the tree’s growth rings used to mockup on a wall the scale of the structure and more interestingly, a model studying the insertion of a slit window created by warping the exterior walls. The Arcus Center is still in construction and is scheduled to open in spring 2014.

Drawing, Sketch of Entry Interior; Architect: Studio Gang, Jeanne Gang; USA; graphite on white paper; H x W: 22.7 x 29 cm (8 15/16 x 11 7/16 in.); Gift of Studio Gang Architects; 2014-4-18