DETAILS / MERIT 

Entry Name: Bemis InfoShop, Omaha
Firm: Min | Day
Owner: Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Photographer /One per entry: Larry Gawel

More than a new entry and reception area for a contemporary art center and artist-in-residence program, the InfoShop is a social condenser and transition space between the city and the galleries. The InfoShop is spare to enhance flexibility. A 24’-long reception desk can be transformed into a full bar with a plug that fills the work area. Opposite are banks of simple boxes for publications and leaflets that extend the modules of the existing brick wall. The wall behind the desk bounds the space and suggests an atmosphere of precision and complexity. We paneled the wall with custom, CNC-milled panels derived from a pinwheel aperiodic tiling pattern. The pattern is composed of right triangles with infinite variation in scale and orientation but no periodicity. Using a custom algorithm, we modified the pattern to focus on discrete centers and to derive the 3-dimensional wall and desk forms.

Jury Comments: In the profession of architecture, we don’t yet know the potential for algorithmic design strategies, but this social condenser and transition space presents a great opportunity for initial applications. Submitted in the new construction category, this project’s infatuation with detail begged for an award in a more closely aligned category. The project’s skillful craftsmanship foreshadows the artisanship found within the Creative Library’s galleries.