STAMFORD MUSEUM & NATURE CENTER

Stamford, CT

The Farmhouse Education Center is the first education building addition to the 118 acre Stamford Museum and Nature Center in 50years. The Education Center provides educational spaces, visitor services and a new entrance to the Farm museum. It includes a 1,600 sq.ft. multipurpose space with commercial kitchen and an open deck overlooking an existing paddock, a Maple Sugar and Cidering House, expanded parking, additional paddocks and outdoor gathering spaces such as the Farmhouse plaza, the Grove plaza with fire pit and boulder seating, and an outdoor classroom.The center straddles competing objectives of a dynamic civic space for public programs and an intimate, contemplative environment for viewing the working farm. The main buildings, located between the new gathering spaces and the existing paddocks, are designed to be a mediating filter, allowing the pasture vista to be experienced from the gathering spaces through the transparent lobby or from the overlook deck. Respectful of their context, the new buildings look like farm buildings. The building volume is reduced and broken into two barn-shaped elements, constructed of heavy timber and clad with cedar. The two barn elements are connected by aglass enclosed breezeway that is the lobby.