Connecting galleries, gardens, and community
With its gardens, galleries, terraces, and courtyards, the new Vero Beach Museum of Art is much more than a museum, an art school, and community spaces—it is a resilient, dynamic, and welcoming arts center for the Vero Beach community and for visitors from throughout the region, state, and beyond.
The transformed VBMA will be thoughtfully integrated into the surrounding park—a welcoming gesture that invites all to explore, engage, and become inspired by art.
BRADY ROBERTS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
The Vero Beach Museum of Art is central to the cultural, educational, and social fabric of Florida’s Treasure Coast. Founded in 1986, VBMA has expanded its mission and reach to become one of the nation’s most visited art institutions of its scale, with demand for its programs now outpacing capacity.
Marking the most comprehensive upgrade in its history, the expansion by Allied Works in partnership with Unknown Studio Landscape Architects will relaunch VBMA for long-term sustainability and growth.
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Landscape, art, and building create an interwoven experience that becomes a profound statement of place.
Brad Cloepfil, Allied Works
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Leveraging the beauty and temperate climate of its barrier island setting, the design is conceived as a series of walled gardens with galleries, program spaces, and courtyards that interweave art and nature.
The concrete façade, cast from native materials, reflects the hues and tones of the region’s natural landscape. Lush, sweeping terraces and large apertures connect indoors and out, blurring the boundaries between the Museum and surrounding Riverside Park.
The Museum’s main exhibition spaces, including collection galleries, sculpture gallery, and special exhibition galleries, are located on the second floor. Expansive windows and glazing allow views of the park, the intracoastal, and the Museum’s ground level.
On the first floor, a dedicated Education Wing with painting, drawing, and ceramics studios; outdoor courtyard; and student exhibition spaces, accommodates high-demand arts education programming.
The new campus builds on VBMA’s tradition of collaborative engagement with the community.
The first floor, free and open to all, includes entry to an expansive Modern and Contemporary art gallery, an interactive kids' Art Zone, café and café courtyard, and store.
Purpose-built spaces that accommodate the Museum’s full range of visitors, include a flexible auditorium, a spacious community room, and event and rooftop terraces that offer spectacular vistas of the Indian River Lagoon.
Leveraging the beauty and temperate climate of its barrier island setting, the design is conceived as a series of walled gardens with galleries, program spaces, and courtyards that interweave art and nature.
The concrete façade, cast from native materials, reflects the hues and tones of the region’s natural landscape. Lush, sweeping terraces and large apertures connect indoors and out, blurring the boundaries between the Museum and surrounding Riverside Park.
The Museum’s main exhibition spaces, including collection galleries, sculpture gallery, and special exhibition galleries, are located on the second floor. Expansive windows and glazing allow views of the park, the intracoastal, and the Museum’s ground level.
On the first floor, a dedicated Education Wing with painting, drawing, and ceramics studios; outdoor courtyard; and student exhibition spaces, accommodates high-demand arts education programming.
The new campus builds on VBMA’s tradition of collaborative engagement with the community.
The first floor, free and open to all, includes entry to an expansive Modern and Contemporary art gallery, an interactive kids' Art Zone, café and café courtyard, and store.
Purpose-built spaces that accommodate the Museum’s full range of visitors, include a flexible auditorium, a spacious community room, and event and rooftop terraces that offer spectacular vistas of the Indian River Lagoon.
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Allied Works is an architecture and design practice rooted in collaboration and the exploration of new ideas. Founded in 1994 by Brad Cloepfil with studios in New York City and Portland, Oregon, the practice has completed prominent cultural projects, museums, educational facilities, residences, and workplaces in locations across the globe. In each project, Allied Works seeks to craft enduring and timeless designs, responsive to both purpose and place.
Unknown Studio Landscape Architecture & Urban Design has a deep belief in the power of the designed landscape to bring joy, wonder, beauty and improved quality of life to all. Through the craft of design and engaged collaboration, Unknown Studio creates new places and microclimates, tells stories, unearths memories, and amplifies the culture and ecosystems of the places in which we live.
