The new Jean and Ric Edelman Fossil Park and Museum has broken ground on the Rowan University campus in Glassboro, N.J. The project’s design was inspired by the core themes of preservation, exploration, and education.
The museum is situated within an active dinosaur fossil dig site in Southern New Jersey that contains thousands of fossils and provides a view into life during the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago. The dig site was used for mining for over a century and is now a 4-acre quarry, surrounded by a 65-acre property that allows “citizen scientists” to dig for fossils alongside Rowan University’s paleontologists.
The design concept for the site was envisioned as a set of metaphorical camera obscuras. The site, the experience, and the architecture are all envisioned as a series of lenses. The building is nestled within the natural landscape as a series of small-scale pavilions that frame the dig site and encourage engagement with the present moment.
The 44,000-sf museum will feature a heavy timber and cross-laminated timber structure and wood cladding to maximize the use of renewable materials. It will act as a learning and research center and an exhibit experience with laboratory space and programs. The museum will feature three immersive galleries with fossils from the late Cretaceous period, full-scale reconstructions of extinct creatures, hands-on learning experiences, live animal attractions, virtual reality, connections to the natural world, and community gathering spaces.
The project will be New Jersey’s largest public net zero facility. Sustainable features include geothermal wells for ground-source heating and cooling systems and a photo voltaic solar field. These features will allow 100% of the energy used by the museum to come from a combination of green energy from New Jersey’s power grid and the renewable energy produced on-site.
The Fossil Museum is slated for completion in 2023.
Related Stories
| Jan 19, 2011
Industrial history museum gets new home in steel plant
The National Museum of Industrial History recently renovated the exterior of a 1913 steel plant in Bethlehem, Pa., to house its new 40,000-sf exhibition space. The museum chose VOA Associates, which is headquartered in Chicago, to complete the design for the exhibit’s interior. The exhibit, which has views of five historic blast furnaces, will feature artifacts from the Smithsonian Institution to illustrate early industrial America.
| Jan 19, 2011
Museum design integrates Greek history and architecture
Construction is under way in Chicago on the National Hellenic Museum, the nation’s first museum devoted to Greek history and culture. RTKL designed the 40,000-sf limestone and glass building to include such historic references as the covered walkway of classical architecture and the natural wood accents of Byzantine monasteries. The museum will include a research library and oral history center, plus a 3,600-sf rooftop terrace featuring three gardens. The project seeks LEED Silver.
| Nov 23, 2010
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library and museum, plus the Bush Institute, is aiming for LEED Platinum. The 226,565-sf center, located at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, was designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh.
| Nov 2, 2010
Cypress Siding Helps Nature Center Look its Part
The Trinity River Audubon Center, which sits within a 6,000-acre forest just outside Dallas, utilizes sustainable materials that help the $12.5 million nature center fit its wooded setting and put it on a path to earning LEED Gold.
| Oct 13, 2010
Tower commemorates Lewis & Clark’s historic expedition
The $4.8 million Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower in Hartford, Ill., commemorates explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark at the point where their trek to the Pacific Ocean began—the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
| Oct 12, 2010
Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Gartner Auditorium was originally designed by Marcel Breuer and completed, in 1971, as part of his Education Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Despite that lofty provenance, the Gartner was never a perfect music venue.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Cleveland, Ohio
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Gold Award. The Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument was dedicated on the Fourth of July, 1894, to honor the memory of the more than 9,000 Cuyahoga County veterans of the Civil War.
| Aug 11, 2010
JE Dunn, Balfour Beatty among country's biggest institutional building contractors, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 50 Institutional Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, Arup, AECOM top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 75 largest international design firms
A ranking of the Top 75 International Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Walter P Moore wins top award for Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
With structural engineering from Walter P Moore, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art has won the New Buildings Under $30 Million project category in the 2009 Structural Engineers Association of Kansas & Missouri (SEAKM) Awards Program.
