海角视频

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Los Angeles, USA

海角视频 helped the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) to transform its underused western end into a vibrant new atrium and welcome center for visitors.

The largest natural history museum in the western United States, its collections include nearly 35 million specimens and artifacts and cover 4.5 billion years of history. A local landmark for the people of Los Angeles since it opened its doors in 1913, it has a special place in the hearts of generations of LA citizens.

Its main building, with its distinctive marble walls and domed and colonnaded rotunda is on The National Register of Historic Places, with additional wings being added to this historic core throughout the 20th century鈥攊n 1925, 1930, 1960 and 1976.

The building is targeting LEED Gold certification and reduces its carbon footprint through adaptive reuse strategies as well as all-electric caf茅 kitchens.

The transformation of the west end of the historic museum includes a 25,000ft虏 renovation of an existing building and 30,000ft虏 of new space.

海角视频 was engaged to provide integrated engineering services for the development, including MEP, facades, energy, and daylighting.

The vision was to replace an underutilised theater with a new addition that houses a welcome center, multi-purpose theater, cafe, shop and support facilities.

Challenge

The latest 30,000ft虏 addition seeks to transform the underused western wing, which was previously dominated by a large concrete theater building from the 1960s. With several major improvements occurring in Exposition Park in anticipation of the 2028 Olympics, such as the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art being developed across the road, the NHM was keen to create a bright new 鈥渇ace鈥� for this side of the institution. Alongside the new space, a 25,000ft虏 existing building constructed in the early 1900鈥檚 is being renovated.

海角视频 was engaged to provide integrated engineering services for the development, including MEP, facades, energy, and daylighting, from schematic design through construction administration phases. We worked closely with the wider design team, led by Frederick Fisher and Partners.

Guided by in-depth conversations with museum leadership and staff, the project design combines NHM鈥檚 value of transparency and community connection with contextual sensitivity, improved functionality and flexibility, and an aesthetic of inspiration. The vision was to replace the underutilized portion of NHM鈥檚 west end with a new two-story and basement addition that houses a welcome center, an immersive multi-purpose theater, cafe, shop, and gallery support facilities.

The extension is targeting LEED Gold certification, and the MEP strategy closely integrates with insights provided by our energy, facades and daylighting teams to ensure systems are optimized for greatest efficiency, and sustainability.

One of the key challenges was assessing the existing MEP infrastructure to minimize the need for new plant materials and costs. For the adaptive reuse approach to be successful, it was critical for the existing plant to be fully capable of serving the new space. The requirement for flexibility in the design of the new theater also provided a range of challenges. The theater was required to take on a range of functions throughout the daily life of the updated museum, so the MEP strategy needed to be cognizant of these requirements for adaptability.

Solution

A new double-height entry point on the museum鈥檚 southwest corner offers easy indoor/outdoor flow between the theater and Exposition Park鈥檚 South Lawn. From this entrance and lobby, visitors will be able to access NHM鈥檚 exhibition spaces by way of the new Welcome Center鈥攁 porch-like ticketing and orientation space that invites both visitors and the community to feel at home in the museum environment.

To achieve NHM鈥檚 aspiration to increase public accessibility through physical and psychological openness, the addition is clad in a glass facade. Varying between transparency and opaque translucency, this material strategy is a direct expression of the museum鈥檚 鈥渋nside-out鈥� identity. It allows the public to freely peek into the museum鈥檚 collection from the park. 

Our facades experts delivered considerable insight into the choice of glazing and tinting, as well as advising on additional details, such as a dotted patterning to the glass that is designed to reduce the risk of bird strikes.

To further NHM鈥檚 capacity to serve as a hub for public engagement, the new addition features a new caf茅, with an all-electric kitchen, and outdoor event space.

The MEP strategy uses the building鈥檚 existing cooling and heating plant and infrastructure wherever possible, expanding it into the new space and optimizing it to ensure it can fully service the extension without adversely impacting the rest of the building. This adaptive reuse of the existing plant allowed our team to deliver savings to the project both in terms of cost and crucially also in terms of the embodied carbon intensity of the building鈥檚 newest wing.

As well as developing this highly efficient MEP strategy, our building environments experts played a key role in assessing the capacity of existing plant and where possible tracking down original plant documentation to ensure the adaptive reuse approach would prove impactful. The only significant addition to the MEP infrastructure is some supplementary cooling to meet the extra needs of the new space at the warmest times of year.

Value

Both during the day and with a new programme of evening events, long into the night, the building will act as a vibrant beacon where LA鈥檚 diverse communities are able to come together in a spirt of learning and exploration of the Earth鈥檚 natural history.

Our multidisciplinary team of experts played a key role in delivering clear insight, particularly around the best approach to adaptive reuse. We collaborated closely with other subject experts and the wider design team to ensure fully integrated solutions were achieved throughout the project.