Discipline : Architecture
Categories :
Other categories in architecture / Facade
: Gold certification
Inspired by the core themes of exploration, education, deep time, and the future, the Jean and Ric Edelman Fossil Park and Museum of Rowan University is a one-of-a-kind active fossil dig site that offers visitors the unique opportunity for hands-on discovery. This museum is one of few places in the world that provides evidence of the profound events that led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and gives insight to our planet’s future, empowering visitors with a renewed agency toward making a positive impact.
The museum is within an active dig site that provides a view into the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago. Once a shallow ocean environment, the site is now a 4-acre quarry encompassed by a 65-acre property, where “citizen scientists” can dig for fossils alongside leading paleontologists. At 45,000 sqft, the museum accompanies the quarry experience and acts as a learning center and exhibit gallery, with laboratory space and programs geared to academic researchers and citizen scientists alike.
The mission of EFM is to inspire action by providing a unique opportunity to explore this remarkable site of scientific wonder. By opening a window to the deep past, the park will imbue visitors with the thrill of scientific discovery as well as a renewed appreciation for the sustenance of life in our world today.
The design of the building itself is inspired by the site's significance as a window through the earth’s surface to the ancient past. The design concept is a set of metaphorical lenses where tiny portals offer views into a vast realm beyond. The perspective through time that the quarry and fossil record offers inspires a design that frames the evidence of past worlds from present day, bridges the interior exhibit experience with the hands-on evidence in the quarry, and provides a view to our possible future in light of climate change and the ongoing human-caused sixth extinction. Conceived as a set of small-scale pavilions integrated with the environment, the museum’s design encourages visitors to traverse from interior spaces to external landscapes, with an open porch and promontory providing an overlook to the quarry and landscape. These architectural features are deeply symbolic of the museum's mission to educate and connect individuals with the natural world.
The architecture further reflects the institution’s mission with high-achieving sustainable measures and a net-zero operational carbon design. The museum encourages environmental stewardship through education and its high-performance sustainable building. Decarbonization occurs via both active and passive measures, such as utilizing heavy timber structure and wood cladding to maximize the use of renewable materials while sequestering carbon, and the all-electric mechanical systems that burn no fossil fuels. The museum will be New Jersey’s largest public net zero facility, with an estimated 105% of the energy used by the museum being offset by renewable energy produced on-site.
