Over the past years the City of Santa Fe has rapidly become the third most important city regarding art IN usa, increasing day to day the number of museums and art galleries. For this reason, the College of Santa Fe has set out to create a program that will make the College one of the leading art schools worldwide. The goal is to attract the best students and recruit the best professors.

To achieve this, they recognize that a good arts program is not sufficient. It is necessary to have a world class building that will be a symbol of pride and academic excellence.

The College intends to build the Visual Arts Center in two phases. The 52,000-square-foot center built as part of phase I, is a complex of five structures {The Marion Center for the Photographic Arts, The Art History Center, Tishman Hall, Tipton Lecture Hall and The Santa Fe Art Institute} connected by courtyards. Every department has a different personality, so instead of doing just one building, we built a town inspired by the concept of a little pueblo.

The concept is pretty much driven by the programmatic and philosophical needs of the College. The need of unity and individuality is very important. Each and every department need to be easily recognized, with open spaces for students to meet, interact and exhibit their work.

Even though the Campus is outside the limits of the historical center, we were extremely careful not to offend the city nor the landscapes, therefore we took a conscious decision of creating a horizontal building with a residential scale.

1999