Glenstone Museum

Glenstone Museum

Application: Interiors

Building Type: Civic Museum

Located on 200 serene acres in Potomac, MD, the new Glenstone Museum pavilions provide new exhibition spaces, collection storage, and foundation offices for a contemporary private art collection. Thomas Pfifer and Partners says this about the project:

“At the museum entrance, the forms are defined as a collection of concrete gallery pavilions. These pavilions, each housing the installation of an individual artist, are linked by a passage facing a courtyard water garden. The pavilion exteriors are composed of six-foot-long, gray cast concrete blocks which naturally vary in color and texture. In contrast with the slight, but deliberate irregularity of the blocks, the windows, with glass as large as nine feet by thirty feet, are precisely detailed windows and set flush to stainless steel mullions…The pavilions are lit with natural light, which enters the gallery rooms through an oculus or lay lights in the ceiling, depending on requirements of the featured works. The architecture of the new Glenstone Museum is characterized by direct materiality and timeless construction.”

Gallery spaces and corridors of the Glenstone Museum feature an excellent example of microchip style terrazzo. Epoxy terrazzo was chosen over polished concrete for its crack resistance, stain resistance and color control. The design team chose a small aggregate blend comprised of size 0’s and 00’s to achieve a rich texture as typical of concrete, but with the desired performance of epoxy.

The design team had a desire for a totally monolithic floor, so instead of using metal divider strips, as is typical of poured in place terrazzo, the terrazzo contractor came up with a temporary pour stop, and then infilled the space between pours with a custom colored flexible joint filler.

This project is LEED Gold certified, with terrazzo contributing as a GreenGuard GOLD certified, low-emitting material and for material reporting with HPDs and EPDs.