Expansion for the Boris Lurie Foundation

Julian Von Der Schulenberg • Advance Studio • Boris Lurie Art and Research Foundation

Rhode Island School of Design • Fall 2019

Large storage warehouses cuts through residential neighborhoods: The site of the proposed project is located by the highway within the suburban sprawl of Clifton, New Jersey, where the scale of the buildings drastically shift from single family houses to industrial warehouses. The addition to the storage facility of the Boris Lurie Art Foundation is conceived as the mediation between public programs and the warehouse typology, filling the void of the medium scale.

The warehouse currently stores around 3,000 art works by Boris Lurie, mostly oil paintings, collages sculptures, an archive and a restoration area. The primary program of the new structure includes a dedicated exhibition gallery, a flexible multi-media space, cafe and artist residency lofts with amenities. Following the Foundation’s desire to make the art storage inventory accessible for public viewing, the addition also serves as the buffer between the street and the open air storage racks.

The structure introduces a new polycarbonate enclosure, offsets forty feet from the existing south facade. A more welcoming and permeable boundary with eight sets of pivot doors and an overhang, serves the lobby, gallery wing, and the existing SRI office. The roof is differentiated by a field of sawtooth skylights, providing ambient lighting for the residency studio, artist lofts, and the lobby. The serrated roof pattern highlights the expansion as a discrete, minimal object which keys into the existing building. 

Clifton Typology Studies

Suburban Fragments

Large storage warehouses cuts through residential neighborhoods: The site of the proposed project is located by the highway within the suburban sprawl of Clifton, NJ, where the scale of the buildings drastically shift from single family houses to industrial warehouses. Taken roads and vehicles out of the equation, the experience of American suburban such as Clifton,NJ is very much fragmented and isolated. The purpose of the design project is to tackle this discontinuity between private and public program amplified by motor vehicles and conventional building scale.

Site and Entry

Interior View (V101)

Ground Level Plan

Second Level Plan Framing Plan

Interior View (V102)