Instructive modeling #1 : the Menil Collection

Learn to model. Learn from the model.

I went into the modeling of the Menil Collection, a great specimen of the art-gallery building typology, looking to learn along the way a few practical lessons and tricks, all the more coming from the world class architect Renzo Piano.

There was so much richness to explore in this project I’m glad I started with it, even if it took me so long to cover -> see my previous post about the making of the Menil Collection 3D model

After a few months of studying and modeling this project on and off, here are the main practical architecture lessons I can recall from the Menil Collection model.

By the way, there’s no real hierarchy between those points, take them as you like it, 10 being a fine number to start with :

1. Design a building along a framework
2. Filter sunlight for an art gallery
3. Put the entrance in the center of a building
4. Optimize rainwater drainage
5. Integrate vegetation in the facades
6. Hide the ventilation system, inside and outside
7. Making adjustable spotlights over an entire gallery
8. Integrate delivery area seamless
9. Maximize scenography flexibility
10. Blend in the neighborhood

Lesson n°1 : Design a building along a framework

The one thing that consistently helped me throughout the modeling of the Menil was the fact that the whole plan followed a very simple framework.

As I could read on the floor plan, there are horizontal and vertical guidelines that frame the entire building, dividing it into a series of rectangles, most of them identical. The frames get smaller at the extremities on the outside. At each crossing of the guidelines, there is a metallic post, 30x30cm.

Note : those guidelines are parallel to the plot limits.

The dimensions of the main frame is 11,80 by 5,90 meters (the length is exactly twice the width). These are very much engraved in my memory as I had to drag-copy hundreds of times by entering those numbers in Sketchup, along one axis or another.

The common gallery space of the Menil Collection takes over 4 frames, forming a rectangle of 11,8m by 23,6m, so roughly 280 square meters. The height under the ceiling is 5,00 meters, which is a good reference for height of an exhibition space that can display big sculptures or paintings.

The entire project is organized along this framework, which makes it very easy to read plans, align walls, balance spaces and draw structural elements.

Lesson n°2 : Filter sunlight for an art gallery

Bouncing sunlight

It seems pretty obvious to design exhibition spaces, within a museum or an art gallery, that are protected from direct sunlight exposition.

The way Renzo Piano alongside ARUP engineers have dealt with this issue on the Menil is what truly makes the project compelling and exemplary.

First, the rooms with south-facing windows are protected from the sun with roof extensions. They do not host exhibitions. The galleries, homes of the artworks, have windows that face the East, North and West, with no direct sunlight beams from the South then.

The sun hits the glass roof of the Entire first floor, but then it bounces off a leaf shaped cement ‘beam’. The light is absorbed by the curve of the following cement beam, before being redirected in the gallery.

The curved shape allows every angle of sun beam to hit and enter the room. This way, sunlight fills out the entire first floor but is filtered in a way to accomodate perfectly the needs of an exhibition space : soft illumination of the artworks and visual comfort for the visitors.

Iconic roof structure

The cement leaves are part of an iron roof structure that became iconic. The structure maintains the entirety of the building while acting as a light filtering device, and a particularly esthetic one as well.

The truss sytem, along with the glass panels arranged over it, is a work of beauty in the balance in dimensions between every element, in every axis.

Above is my detailed render of a short module of the structure, available for free here.

Genius design.

Lesson n°3 : Put the entrance in the center of a building

This one is simpler to illustrate but worth mentioning.

While the entrance of most buildings can be placed at the edge, in the case of the Menil Collection, the North main entrance cuts right into the building, allowing the public to enter in the very center of it.

This arrangement serves two things :

1. It creates breathing in the North façade, opening the building large on the exterior, rather than being a straightened block all along.
2. The visitor, once he crosses the front doors, finds himself in the center of the floor distribution and has a direct view on all the galleries entries from the hall.

Lesson n°4 : Optimize rainwater drainage

We went over the roof structure earlier from below, now let’s look at what’s above.

The glass panels distribution is linked with the structure, placed above the iron truss system that holds the cement leaves with perfect harmony. The rythms of the glass roof, the truss and the leaves are all synched.

What’s even more impressive is the way the gutter network aroudn the glass panels works. The white metallic gutters work in triple effect :

• They blend seamlessly between the glass panels metallic supports, creating a balanced and esthetic roof ensemble.
• They lower the surface of ‘roof’ that needs to drain rainwater
• The small gutters intersect the long gutters to conduct water on the edges of the roof (I know this well since I modeled in details those intersections)

Since there are a lot of long gutters all along the building, the amount of water drained is well distributed between them.

Anyway, I thought this whole gutter network system was an ingenious find, worth mentioning, especially since it is not easy to appreciate it from ground level.

Moving on.

Lesson n°5 : Integrate vegetation in the facades with trees

Before green walls were a thing, the facades of the Menil Collection (built in 1987 as a reminder) present an interesting way to integrate vegetation.

Renzo Piano played with the established framework to create small openings in the exterior parts of the roof from time to time, in places where it wasn’t necessary to block sunlight for instance.

These openings left spaces to let small trees grow and become integrate parts of the facade, lodged between the walls and the roof structure.

The effect created by the incorporation of treess is very refreshing in the way :

• It helps the blending of the building in the suburban neighbourhood environment where it lives
• It breaks the esthetic monotony of the facade coming from the framework

We also can see that those openings make way to the central alley cutting through the building towards the entrance. Here again, design choices score multiple points on multiple fronts.

Lesson n°6 : Hide the ventilation system, inside and outside

The ventilation system of the Menil Collection appears to be a very clever one.

When inside the galleries it is far from obvious to point out how the air comes in or out. The system that was introduced here by ARUP engineers is that of air coming from the ground, made of dark wooden floors, mixed with metallic vents. Those have the same dimensions as the wood slats and blend well in color as well. Nothing is left to chance in those choices.

As for the extraction air ducts, they are completely hidden on top of the cement leaves.

Bonus tip

For the exterior air tretment equipments, yes they are on the outside of the building, but completely hidden between the roof of the ground floor and the bottom of the first floor.

It is impossible to spot this bad boy from anywhere on foot around the building, because of the roof extensions that cut any eye trajectories from the ground towards it (I know, I tried).

Here again, genius design on both ends.

Lesson n°7 : Making adjustable spotlights over an entire gallery

The cement leaves play a major role in the filtering of sunlight as we saw before, but they don’t stop here. The bottom part of the leaves also work as an invisible rail to clip in spotlights, indispensable in any art gallery.

The fact that the leaves cover the entire width of the gallery, combined with their close proximity between each other in the length of the gallery (1,18m difference), allows to give access to roughly the entire gallery surface to place any number of spotlights.

Given the spotlight model can then point in any direction, the flexibility in the scenography is limitless with that design.

Lesson n°8 : Integrate the delivery area seamlessly

Important collection of artwork means importance of accessibility of those artworks inside the building. Since we’re talking about sometimes very large sculptures or paintings, the Menil Colection needs a service door big enough to let them in.

It is to be found in the South façade, near the staff entrance, and it is very well hidden in the exterior walls. Using the same metallic beams finish that the rest of the uilding, the large door remains pretty discreet, as the vehicule access from the street.

Once the door is open, the artworks enter the ‘Receiving and Registration Area’ of the ground floor, which is large enough to process them (around 100m²), and send them either up for storage or down for photo shoot, with direct access to the large elevator (3,75 x 6,00 m shaft).

Lesson n°9 : Maximize scenography flexibility

We saw the possibility to place spotlights anywhere to match the type of artworks exhibited.

The way the structure is set in the whole building also allows a lot of freedom in the way the galleries are to be used.

If you consider the ensemble of galleries conencted to each other, the accumulated space can grow very fast. The only disadvantage being the presence of very small posts (30cm*30cm) every 11,80m width wise and 5,90m length wise. Needless to say, this disadvantage can be easily dealt with with smart partitions between galleries, that can be stretched either way.

Lesson n°10 : How to blend in the neighbourhood

One of the strengths of the Menil Collection project comes from its quasi perfect integration with the architectural environment it came into.

This blending, carateristic of Piano’s work, is in this case made possible by multiple factors :

• The openness of the Menil, whose park is completely free to use by anyone in the area, with a lot of green spaces, comfortable promenade under the roofs and so on. This means blending in by letting people in.
• The choice of material, using cypress wood which is very common in the construction of houses around, with a greenish tint that is both discreet and elegant. This is blending in esthetically.
• The scale of the building, not too imposing over the surrounding skyline, the majority of the building being on only one floor. This is blending in heights.

Conclusion

If you made it this far, you deserve a medal : Here’s a 50% off code if you wish to get the 3d model (or any other) on my CG Trader 3D files library : 0700779C48C4. Valid only once for the first person to make it until here.

I tried to focus this “Instructive modeling” post on pratical things about the building, which I really got a sense of by the process of recreating it digitally.

When you face difficulties in the modeling, it forces you to dive deeper into the designing process of the architect, and to ask yourself some of the questions the actual architect must have asked himself originally.

I’m hoping that what I have learned through the modeling will someday be of use in future projects of mine. At least there are some reference dimensions and designing principles I’m aware of now, that I certainly did not have before, coming out of school.

I hope it might encourage others to give this particular learning method a shot.

Let me know in the comments if that speaks to you in any way (hopefully it does), and see you in the next one.