Museum of the American Indian

The Museum of the American Indian in Miwok Park in Novato, California, is the only cultural resource of its kind in the Bay Area. We have worked with the museum to recraft its vision statement and develop a proposal for a new 4,500-square-foot state-of-the-art facility that celebrates the Museum’s mission to protect an exceptional collection of native artifacts and educate over 4,000 school children a year about America’s first people.

Located in a city park, the proposed building plan negotiates complex public and private programmatic needs in a simple yet compelling form. Flexible spaces allow the museum to operate education and exhibition programming simultaneously and to create controlled spaces for rentable event space after hours. The site strategy connects the park and museum, so that each is an amenity to the other. The building strategy seamlessly incorporates the functional and technical requirements of museum-quality environmental control, storage and administration, and universal accessibility within artfully crafted design deeply rooted in the project’s site, history, and community.