NHM Commons, a new wing and community hub under construction at The Natural History Museums (NHM) of Los Angeles County, was designed to be both a destination and a portal into the building and to the surrounding grounds.
Major elements of the addition include sustainable gardens, a 400-seat multi-purpose theater that will offer daytime and evening events, free admission to the Judith Perlstein Welcome Center, which will house Gnatalie, “the first real skeletal mount of a long-neck dinosaur on the West Coast,” and Barbara Carrasco’s mural L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective.
The Commons’ amenities include a cafe with indoor/outdoor seating, a retail space inside the airy Wallis Annenberg Lobby, and a spacious plaza intended as a communal gathering point for events and relaxation. The latter will also serve as the Museum’s “front porch” to the neighboring Exposition Park.
The $75 million NHM Commons expansion and renovation, designed by Frederick Fisher & Partners with landscape design by Studio-MLA, will create 75,000 sf of renovated space and new construction. The Native American Advisory Council, which represents native communities in Southern California including Gabrieleno-Tongva, Tataviam, Chumash, and Ajachmem, contributed to programming and provided design input for the project. The council focused on ways to build a sense of welcome, acknowledgment, respect for native people who enter the space, and on opportunities to remind, express to, and educate visitors that Los Angeles is on native land.
NHM Commons is part of a 10-year plan aimed at increasing access to research and collections that will provide more resources and amenities for neighboring communities and create integrated indoor-outdoor destinations at The Natural History Museums in Exposition Park and at La Brea Tar Pits in Hancock Park.
The reimagining of La Brea Tar Pits—the only active urban paleontological site in the world—has begun with the early stages of master planning by the architectural team of Weiss/Manfredi.
On the project team:
Owner and/or developer: County of Los Angeles, Fundraising and Project Implementation by the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum Foundation
Design architect: Frederick Fisher and Partners
Architect of record: Frederick Fisher and Partners
MEP engineer: BuroHappold
Structural engineer: John A. Martin & Associates
General contractor/construction manager: MATT Construction
Related Stories
| Aug 29, 2014
Phifer and Partners to design 'transparent' Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
The design includes a stage that opens onto the city's Parade Square, so anyone passing by will be able to see performances.
| Aug 25, 2014
Ranked: Top cultural facility sector AEC firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Arup, Gensler, and Turner head BD+C's rankings of design and construction firms with the most revenue from cultural facility projects, as reported in the 2014 Giants 300 Report.
| Aug 14, 2014
Museum of Mayan Culture draws inspiration from temple design [slideshow]
The Museo Maya de América in Guatemala City will be the world’s largest museum of Mayan history and culture, at 60,000 sf.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction market benefits from improving economy, new technology [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Following years of fairly lackluster demand for commercial property remodeling, reconstruction revenue is improving, according to the 2014 Giants 300 report.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Construction Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Structure Tone, Turner, and Gilbane top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction contractor and construction management firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Engineering Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Jacobs, URS, and Wiss, Janney, Elstner top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction engineering and engineering/architecture firms in the U.S.
| Jul 28, 2014
Reconstruction Sector Architecture Firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Stantec, HDR, and HOK top Building Design+Construction's 2014 ranking of the largest reconstruction architecture and architecture/engineering firms in the U.S.
| Jul 23, 2014
Architecture Billings Index up nearly a point in June
AIA reported the June ABI score was 53.5, up from a mark of 52.6 in May.
| Jul 21, 2014
Economists ponder uneven recovery, weigh benefits of big infrastructure [2014 Giants 300 Report]
According to expert forecasters, multifamily projects, the Panama Canal expansion, and the petroleum industry’s “shale gale” could be saving graces for commercial AEC firms seeking growth opportunities in an economy that’s provided its share of recent disappointments.
| Jul 18, 2014
Contractors warm up to new technologies, invent new management schemes [2014 Giants 300 Report]
“UAV.” “LATISTA.” “CMST.” If BD+C Giants 300 contractors have anything to say about it, these new terms may someday be as well known as “BIM” or “LEED.” Here’s a sampling of what Giant GCs and CMs are doing by way of technological and managerial innovation.
