LSU Rural Life
Museum

Situated in the middle of Baton Rouge’s urban fabric lies several hundred acres of rural agricultural land amongst which a Museum and Gardens are quietly tucked away. In 2004, the client commissioned a new addition to further spotlight the century-long story of the working-class people of rural Louisiana through architecture, culture and artifacts. The new facility adds much needed gallery, administration, and assembly space necessary for the growth of the museum.

The design parti is an agricultural vernacular, identified by corrugated metal skin akin to old farm buildings, used as the exterior wall cladding and turned horizontal in an effort to distinguish old from new. Salvaged wood from dilapidated Acadian structures was collected over the years and can now be found throughout in a myriad of details such as the operable rolling barn doors that separate the assembly space from the main hall.