SO-IL has revealed its design for an art gallery in Brooklyn, New York, which explores the relationship between both exterior and interior, and light and dark.

The four-storey Artes Amant – expected to complete by 2017 – is a haven for modern art, where artists can create, display and store their work. The designs for the 1,320sqm (14,250sq ft) Artes Amant began with the inside, looking first at the functionality of where artists would work and where art would be displayed and stored.

The gently sculpted exterior shape of the concrete building is designed to interact with the industrial surroundings and at the same time act as appropriate shelter for gallery and studio spaces inside. The building’s form is based around the idea of a “cluster of shells” placed around a central void. Each shell houses an independent space for activities inside.

Gaps within the understated geometrical exterior form windows and apertures that allow light to enter so that sections of the building play with light in different ways.

“Apertures in the shells capture and carry natural light into a nearly edgeless interior, challenging the perception of a defined space,” according to Brooklyn-based SO-IL. “Across the building’s exterior, edges and seams slip in and out of appearance.”

“Throughout the building’s suppleness and muted palette play with ambiguity and legibility; neither monumental nor prosaic, instead it entices.”

SO-IL was founded in 2008 by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu. The firm is also working alongside Freaks Freearchitects on a glass museum and gallery on the site of an 18th century factory in Meisenthal, France.

SO-IL and Freaks to redesign historic glass factory site