Shade and Shadow

Plan Drawings

Exploded Axonomeric Section

Museum of the Eart

                                                                                                                                                       

Marion Weiss and Micheal Manfredi are the co-founder of WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/ Landscape/Urbanism. WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism is at the forefront of architectural design practices that are redefining the relationships between landscape, architecture, infrastructure, and art. Named one of North America’s “Emerging Voices” by the Architectural League of New York, WEISS/MANFREDI’s distinct vision was recognized with the Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Additional honors include the Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal and the New York AIA Gold Medal. 

The new museum for the Paleontological Research Institution engages the remarkable landforms of the Finger Lakes Region. The museum and the 6.2-acre site house one of the nation’s largest paleontological collections, and demonstrate the intrinsic relationships between geological events and biological evolution. Set within the hillside and adjacent to the existing research facility, the museum is organized into two parallel and interconnected buildings – a public education wing and a new exhibition hall. Together these two structures define the edges of a new cascading plaza, extending views to Cayuga Lake. The museum is organized into two parallel buildings – a public education wing and an exhibition wing – that are connected below grade. These structures are defined by a series of poured-in-place concrete walls, aluminum curtain walls, and standing-seam copper roofs cantilevered over the two wings of the museum. The partially buried structures define the edges of a cascading plaza, extending views to the lake and the surrounding landscape. 

The interior spatial quality the visitor experiences also changes depending upon his placement in the museum.  Just inside the exhibition hall entrance, the lobby takes the form of a bridge leading to a reception area and gift shop. As visitors walk along the ramp they descend in time, passing artist Barbara Page’s installation of 543 different panels, each representing one million years of geologic history. On the lower level, the exhibition extends through three geological periods: Devonian, Triassic, and Quaternary; interactive exhibits with more than 650 specimens are on view.

The below-grade exhibition hall also benefits from thermal insulation achieved by embedding both wings of the complex deep within the earth. Heating and cooling systems for the building are supplemented by geothermal energy provided by two ground-source water pumps that harness energy from fifteen hundred feet beneath the earth’s surface. This energy is transformed into radiant floor heating in the winter and fed into an air-handling system for heating and cooling year-round