High Desert Museum Expansion
The transformed campus will deepen our ability to evolve alongside the diverse audiences we serve and to reinforce the Museum’s integral role in our community as a leading cultural, educational, and civic institution.
Dana Whitelaw, PhD
Executive Director of the High Desert Museum
High Desert Museum Expansion
Bend, Oregon
24,000 SF
Designer Notes
The High Desert Museum is undertaking a major expansion to strengthen its role as one of the region’s most important educational and cultural resources, serving as a place where community, landscape, and history intersect.
Founded in 1982 and nationally recognized for its interdisciplinary approach to wildlife, culture, art, history, and the natural world, the Museum welcomes 200,000 visitors each year and offers learning experiences uniquely rooted in the surrounding High Desert landscape.
This next chapter builds on a long relationship with Hacker Architects, who designed the first new building on the Museum’s campus soon after both the Museum and the firm were founded, an enduring partnership rooted in shared values of place, landscape stewardship, and public education.
The 24,000 sf expansion will create space for a dedicated fine art gallery, classrooms, a flexible commons and lobby, meeting and gathering spaces, and a 300-person event hall with a catering kitchen.
The new fine art gallery will be state-of-the-art and highly flexible, capable of hosting rotating exhibitions, large-scale works, immersive installations, and traveling shows. It will significantly expand the Museum’s ability to present major regional and national artists while deepening dialogue between art, culture, and the High Desert landscape.
At the heart of the addition, the flexible commons and gathering spaces will serve as an everyday meeting ground, welcoming school groups, families, partners, and community members. These spaces are envisioned as adaptable environments for informal learning, conversation, collaboration, and reflection, strengthening connections between exhibitions, programs, and the landscape beyond.
Together, these improvements position the campus to better serve growing audiences while sustaining the Museum’s mission well into the future.
People
Corey Martin / Sienna Shiga / Sarah Weber / John Dalit / Jake Freauff / Laura Klinger / Amy Maras / Sarah Oxley / Nick Pectol / Caitlin Ranson / Kelsey Smith / Peng Wang
