Dallas Museum of Art
This 1984 Edward Larrabee Barnes museum featured a courtyard designed by artist Richard Fleischner. Our renovation, completed in collaboration with Fleischner, balances restoration and transformation to return the landscape to the center of life at the museum.
Sculptor, installation artist, painter and furniture maker Richard Fleischner conceived and built his courtyard as a “square within a square within a square”. Our design efforts refurbished Fleischner’s original vision, making the landscape more resilient and more practical. A surface of decomposed granite on structural soils, for example, preserves his vision for a non-directional ground plane while also enabling guests wearing high heels to walk comfortably. Vegetation is re-vitalized. We substituted hardy cedar elms for the original but frailer Bradford Pear trees and suspended catenaries to light the courtyard for museum events.
Location
Dallas, TX
Dates
2006-2010
Size
.5 acres