“This project manages to be incredibly rigorous and cohesive in terms of materiality and massing while simultaneously providing a wide variety of spaces in terms of lighting, scale, and circulation. It’s beautiful.”
— Mimi Hoang, AIA
Location Houston
Client Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Architect Steven Holl Architects
Design Team Steven Holl, FAIA; Chris McVoy, AIA; Olaf Schmidt; Filipe Taboada; Rychiee Espinosa, Yiqing Zhao, Lourenzo Amaro de Oliveira, Garrick Ambrose, Xi Chen, Carolina Cohen Freue, JongSeo Lee, Vahe Markosian, Elise Riley, Christopher Rotman, Yun Shi, Alfonso Simlio, Dimitra Tsachrelia, Yasmin Vobis
Contractor McCarthy
Associate Architect Kendall/Heaton Associates
Project Manager Legends
Structural Engineers IMEG; Guy Nordenson and Associates
MEP Engineer ICOR Associates
Civil Engineer Walter P Moore
Climate Engineer Transsolar
Lighting Consultant L’Observatoire International
Cost Estimator Venue Cost Consultants
Facade Consultant Knippers Helbig
Devoted to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s international collections of modern and contemporary art, the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building is characterized by horizontal porosity, opening on the ground floor to unify the museum and create an integral campus experience for the community to enjoy. Translucent glass half-tubes, which reduce solar heat gain and control daylight, line the expansive facades. Concave curves, imagined from cloud circles, push down on the roof geometry, allowing natural light to slip in with precise measure and quality for top-lit galleries. Organized horizontally on two levels, the flow-through galleries are punctuated by views into seven surrounding gardens.
For more on the Kinder Building, see the article “Cloud Formation” in the March/April 2021 issue of TA.