The University of Wyoming wanted a green design for its new Visual Arts Center that would "change the culture of the people in the building," says Tim Belton, the project's lead architect. His firm, Malone Belton Abel, of Sheridan, Wyo., collaborated with THA Architecture, Portland, Ore., to create an 80,000-sq-ft building on a 10-acre site at the UW campus in Laramie.
The center, which will open to the public in January, will house classrooms, offices, an exhibition gallery and studios for metalworking, ceramics, drawing, foundations of art, graphics, painting, printmaking and sculpture.