PLUS SUM Studio

Director / Martin Summers

Project Designer / Hans Koesters

Modeling & Visualization / Hans Koesters

 

 

Children are naturally curious, seeking opportunities to playfully explore while wondering about the magical possibilities of the world around them.  This wonder and the process of discovery are fundamental to the mission of a children’s museum and fundamental to our design strategy.  In our proposal, we seek to engage the potential of the human mind via an innovative architectural expression that activates the senses, ignites ones imagination, and heightens the anticipation of new discoveries revealed via movement through space.

 

The new campus like configuration uses the Children’s Museum entry sequence to take full advantage of its new urban context.  By developing the park as a conceptual and physical extension of the museum’s atrium and roof, the buildings blur the allowing for increased flexibility in programming while also addressing a site split by a major thoroughfare.  This new link allows the park to be and extension of the museum.  The main entry is accessed via the under street park path while also open at street level along Broadway and Third.  You then move to the fourth floor for ticketing before gradually descending via ramps back to the urban lobby.

 

The design leverages the internal and external environment revealing the urban context as an extension of the museums and its function.  The plants and water feature of the park become exhibits of nature, while also cooling the site.  This cool air is drawn through the entrance tunnel up into the atrium via natural convection, where windows at the west end of the “cross-void” open to evacuate the rising warm air.  In colder months, the design takes advantage of this same natural convection to temper the upper atrium by allowing heat to collect, producing a warmer zone on the fourth floor where ticketing and entry occur.  The building also features a large solar array on the south façade and roof that is visible from the park, through the skylight at the ticket counter, and from the roof deck. Passive strategies, natural cycles, sustainable plantings, and integrated solar increase the overall sustainability and produce a museum that is an exhibit.