School of Art and Design | New York State College of Ceramics | Alfred, New York

The McGee Art Pavilion is an expansion to the School of Art and Design at the New York State College of Ceramics in Alfred, New York. The Pavilion is designed as a large ceramic vessel for holding art and light. It is set between two existing campus buildings on Academic Alley - the main pedestrian thoroughfare on the campus. Its ceramic façade, made of un-glazed terra cotta tubes, is a solar and rain screen. The unglazed terra cotta tubes remind one of the ceramic vessels and art objects inside the School of Art and Design. These ceramic tubes are staggered in a striated pattern. Their un-glazed ruddy white pigment is similar to the rudimentary nature of student art work before final finishing. Cantilevering over a glass wall, the ceramic pavilion dramatically engages campus on-lookers as a piece of art and allows them to see inside the exhibition gallery, thereby putting student work on public display. The exhibition space is flexible and large to display contemporary art pieces. A mezzanine gallery overlooks the two story exhibition hall to give a bird’s eye perspective to three dimensional work. The mezzanine also connects to the immersive gallery - a black box space for the total immersive display of video and audio art forms. Below the exhibition hall are art studios, expanded media studios, art history classrooms and support spaces. The McGee Pavilion is designed to achieve a USGBC LEED Silver certification through control of day lighting in the galleries, TPO roofing, low consumption water fixtures and high efficiency heating ventilation and air conditioning systems - including radiant heating in the exposed concrete floors of the studios and exhibition space.