cream and tan exterior of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

February 7, 2024

Inside the Refreshed Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

2023 Best of Year Winner for Domestic Museum

Overhauling a confusing warren of seven buildings added in a disorganized fashion to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art in Little Rock since its opening in 1937 involved multiple interventions, from an addition to sensitive renovations, totaling 133,000 square feet. For Studio Gang, the key to unlocking the puzzle was a new circulation spine that weaves north to south through the site. It’s topped with a standout pleated concrete roof plane, its underside composed of 6,000 individually suspended plywood-slat “vertebrae.” One side of the spine terminates in a glass-wrapped lounge elevated on stilts, with a plaza beneath. The roof graduates down as it reaches the opposite side, ending at Park Grill, the museum’s restaurant.

See Interior Design’s Best of Year Winners and Honorees

Explore must-see projects and innovative products that took home high honors.

2024 WINNERS

a curved wall of windows at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

an airy interior of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

a gallery with wood floors in the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

Projects
NC Design & Architecture Takes Home an Award for Its Own Office
Take a closer look at the 2023 Interior Design Best of Year Awards winner for Firm’s Own Office, NC Design & Architecture’s Hong Kong workplace.
Projects
Yabu Pushelberg Designs A Vegas Nightclub For Bruno Mars
The Rat Pack meets modern glam at The Pinky Ring, Bruno Mars’s penthouse-inspired nightclub by Yabu Pushelberg inside Vegas’s Bellagio.
Projects
Savor Crawfish At This Restaurant Overlooking The Dabaoen Temple
Take a closer look at the 2024 Interior Design Best of Year Awards winner for Shining Moment, Big Red Crawfish by Dayi Design.