The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) recently held a community open house to present the schematic design for its new facility to the public. Designed by the renowned New York City-based firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), the project will unite a repurposed former UC Berkeley printing plant with a new structure. Located in Berkeley’s arts district and targeted to be completed in late 2015, the new building will be part of a cultural nexus, which includes the neighboring Berkeley Repertory Theater; Aurora Theater; Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, devoted to traditional music; and the Bancroft Library’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life. 
 
Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s design for the new BAM/PFA combines the 1939 concrete Art Deco-style former printing plant, unoccupied since 2004, with a new metal-clad structure. The new design creates a cohesive and visually arresting space for art, film, education, civic interaction, and administration. Plans call for the imaginatively repurposed industrial building to house the museum’s collection and exhibition galleries, a thirty-two-seat screening room, museum store, learning center, K–12 education areas, community gallery, and offices. The complementary, forward-thinking multipurpose new structure includes the 230-seat PFA Theater, Library and Film Study Center, special event space, collection study area, café, and nonpublic areas. The new structure will appear to hover above the excavated lower level, which will contain the Film Library and Study Center, open collection storage and study areas, and other education-related spaces. On the north side of the building, an outdoor plaza will provide a welcoming public space.
 
According to BAM/PFA Director Lawrence Rinder, “BAM/PFA’s dynamic exhibitions and programs will find an ideal home in the new facility designed by DS+R. The firm’s plan respects the grand interior of the existing printing plant, while adding to that building a bold new architectural form filled with sensuous colors, materials, and surfaces. DS+R’S commitment to the integration of cultural institutions into the life of cities is embodied in its embrace of transparency and openness as fundamental design principles. At once beautiful and accessible, the new BAM/PFA will be a destination for art and film lovers from throughout the Bay Area, the nation, and the world.”
The new BAM/PFA is anticipated to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, given by the U.S. Green Building Council) certification of silver or higher. The museum has received commitments for $65 million of its $100 million campaign. The architect-of-record for the new BAM/PFA building is the nationally recognized San Francisco-based EHDD. BAM/PFA began planning for a new facility in 1997, when an engineering survey determined that its current building does not meet present-day seismic standards and cannot be upgraded to meet those standards without eliminating the open space required for the museum’s exhibition program.

Founded in 1963, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) is UC Berkeley’s primary visual arts venue and among the largest university art museums in size and audience in the United States. The museum’s collection of over 16,000 works of art includes important holdings of Neolithic Chinese ceramics, Ming and Ching Dynasty Chinese painting, Old Master works on paper, Italian Baroque painting, early American painting, Abstract Expressionist painting, contemporary photography, and video art. Its film archive of over 14,000 films and videos includes the largest collection of Japanese cinema outside of Japan, Hollywood classics, and silent film, as well hundreds of thousands of articles, reviews, posters, and other ephemera related to the history of film, many of which are digitally scanned and accessible online.