The Miami Science Museum released final designs for its new $275 million downtown home at Bicentennial Park
BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI
The Miami Science Museum has finalized designs for a new $275 million home on Biscayne Boulevard that will combine a retro-modern look with sleek, undulating contemporary lines and an expansive open-air feel, while incorporating the latest green and interactive technologies.
“The most distinctive design of any building in Miami, from every direction,” the museum boasts in fundraising materials prepared for prospective donors.
The boast may not be far off the mark.
The museum — which plans to add an aquarium at its new home — released renderings of the new, five-level complex’s final schematic designs by noted London-based Grimshaw Architects that represent a significant refinement of conceptual images released eight months ago.
For the first time, the renderings also place the new science museum together with its neighbor, the planned Miami Art Museum designed by the Swiss firm of Herzog & de Meuron, providing a preview of the ensemble in its intended, park-like setting.
The two museum buildings are to anchor the new Museum Park on the 29-acre bayfront site of what is now half-derelict Bicentennial Park, at Northeast 10th Street and Biscayne Boulevard.
The design strives for maximum exposure to the outdoors, seizing on stunning views, the South Florida climate and the park setting to provide a welcoming embrace to visitors, said Science Museum Director Gillian Thomas.
The final plan comprises four interconnected, terraced structures: an oblong “Living Core” containing the aquarium and a massive Gulf Stream tank, a striking new planetarium orb overlooking Biscayne Boulevard, and two squared-off wings in a “V” containing exhibition space, classrooms and cafes. These main structures would be set around a soaring, open-air atrium lined with terraces and shaded by a canopy punctured by skylights.
“It’s an impressive building, but not impressive-frightening,” Thomas said. “We’ve tried to blend it in with the surroundings much more. Nothing’s hidden.”
The plans were endorsed by the city’s Urban Development Review Board last week with some minor conditions, and museum officials hope for final approval from the Miami City Commission this fall. That would put the museum on track for start of construction in the fall of 2011, Thomas said. The complex would open in 2014.
Release of the final schematics also marks the start of major fundraising for the project, which will be underwritten by $175 million in proceeds from voter-approved Miami-Dade County bonds — although the county has not yet decided when it will release the earmarked funds.
The museum, which must raise the balance of $100 million privately, already has some $23 million in pledges, according to a recent county report.
Although fundraising has been hurt by the economic recession, county and museum officials acknowledge, the project remains on track and backers say they’re confident the full amount will be raised.
“This is pretty much as planned,” said Michael Spring, the county’s director of cultural affairs. “When you get the design to this point, it’s the right time to talk to major donors.”
Together with an outdoor “science playground,” the complex totals 250,000 square feet, covering a footprint of about four acres.
The buildings would be clad in gleaming tiles. The Living Core, which would face the park, would be topped by an open canopy shading a series of outdoor gardens and aquarium exhibits designed by Thinc, a New York firm. The Living Core structure comes to a prow-like point angled at the bay.
At the structure’s core is a massive Gulf Stream tank with expansive views of the park and Biscayne Bay beyond it. As in the earlier conceptual plans, the bottom of the tank would be cut off at an angle and glassed in to provide dramatic upwards views of swimming sharks and rays.
The new planetarium dome — to be lit up with celestial projections after dark — would rise above Biscayne Boulevard where it meets the on-ramp to the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach.
Between the Boulevard and museum’s west wing, which would house a cafe among other amenities, the plans call for a marsh-like retention pond that would hold rainwater coming off the complex for watering the landscaping and other uses.
The entire complex, in fact, is supposed to act as a demonstration of ecological and sustainability principles, harnessing energy from water, wind and sun to power exhibits and conserve resources. The new museum will also incorporate wildlife exhibits popular in its present incarnation on South Miami Avenue on a portion of the former grounds of Vizcaya.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/27/1652263/final-design-for-miami-science.html#ixzz0pFNctj8B
The Museum, and anyone who has looked up at the night sky, has suffered a heavy loss today. I cannot see us going forward without naming the planetarium “The Jack Horkheimer Planetarium”. For all he has done for us, let us give back to him one more time.