Organic Architecture: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC
This 260,000 SF, five-story structure is home one of the world’s largest and most diverse exhibitions and collections of Native America.
The five-story curvilinear building is clad in Kasota limestone that evokes natural rock formations of the southwestern United States. The structure contains six footprints, undulating perimeter walls, real boulders and constructed water features and a 45-meter entrance overhang reminiscent of age-old cliff dwellings.
No two floors have the same geometric layout, and the design contains many compound curves and changing radii throughout the building. There are more than 500 work points, each of which represent the center of a circle and can generate multiple radii.