A museum taking form within the middle of the Nationwide Geographic Society’s downtown Washington, D.C., headquarters campus guarantees to set new benchmarks in each sustainable development and technology-rich immersive instructional experiences to showcase the world’s pure and cultural wonders.
Totaling greater than 100,000 sq ft of renovation and new development, the Museum of Exploration additionally will characteristic one-of-a-kind curated displays, a state-of-the-art theater, restaurant, retail retailer and central plaza.
The museum, designed by architect Hickok Cole and beneath development by DC-based HITT Contracting since mid-2022, builds actually and figuratively on components of the Nation Geographic Society’s 136-year historical past.
Ryan Sokoloski, the group’s senior director of constructing operations explains that the brand new facility extends into the campus’s 4 present buildings, together with the Classical Revival-style Hubbard Corridor, in-built 1904, and others that have been added and expanded from 1931 to the early Nineteen Eighties.
“We’ve needed to bear in mind the several types of development,” Sokoloski says, “from waffle slabs in a single constructing to terra cotta slabs in one other.”
Subgrade work included drilling micropiles 25 to 60 ft deep to bedrock, which Sokoloski says varies in depth beneath the city-block-sized campus.
“In some areas, we poured basis concrete immediately on bedrock,” he provides.
After putting in pile caps and subgrade structural metal, HITT continued with the brand new museum’s 15,000-sq-ft pavilion with a glass façade and rooftop terrace, which is able to function the principle entrance and occasion area. The pavilion and present campus buildings, which is able to endure first-floor renovations, will encompass a brand new 52,000-sq-ft public plaza.
Sokoloski credit the challenge crew for serving to incorporate Nationwide Geographic’s excessive requirements for sustainability into the museum, which is focusing on LEED Platinum when it opens in 2026. Millwork, initially designed to be oak, was modified to ash salvaged from timber broken by an invasive borer beetle. Concrete knee partitions that stretch steel decking use air gaps for insulation, eliminating the necessity for polystyrene materials.
As an alternative of utilizing carbon-intense light-weight concrete for the challenge’s flooring decks, structural engineer Arup instructed utilizing normal-weight concrete with a 3/8-in layer of cementitious fireproofing materials sprayed on the underside. Sokoloski says the change decreased carbon emissions by 20%.
Some sustainability components haven’t but been finalized, such because the composition of the pavilion’s signature entryway—an11-ft-tall yellow border paying homage to the long-lasting Nationwide Geographic journal covers.
“We’re evaluating a number of mock-ups to find out the precise materials, although it actually received’t be plastic,” Sokoloski says. “We need to be true to our model.”
The Museum of Exploration follows a multi-year program to improve inside areas in a number of of the of Nationwide Geographic’s different campus buildings. Additionally designed by Hickock Cole and constructed by Rockville, Md. Davis Building, this system modernized work areas to facilitate better collaboration whereas additionally incorporating fashionable media expertise and growing entry to pure gentle. Photo voltaic panels present 25% of the buildings’ energy, whereas a gray water HVAC system additional reduces the campus’s carbon footprint.
Nationwide Geographic has not publicly launched a value for both the museum or the present constructing renovation program.
Discussion about this post