Max gave me a copy of OMSI’s master plan document yesterday and lo and behold today I have a better idea of what my building program could be. As I was reading through the wants and needs that OMSI has for adjacent lots (one of which is mine) I found out that OMSI has one of the biggest exhibit building businesses in the country and needs more space. check. The Pepco building is directly adjacent to my lot so I’d like to include that expansion in my building program. But, that is secondary to the idea I came up with last night that would anchor my site. The Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul has a very unique program that inhabits the what they call the “The Science House.” The Science House is essentially a school/resource center for K-12 teachers. The museum allows teachers to check out materials from their collections to use in science related classes. It also hosts professional development events, and brings professionals in science and engineering in for teachers to consult on concepts they teach in the classroom. OMSI has a program similar to this called SERC (which I fully intend to go tour & have an email out) but as far as I can tell must be pretty small and is fairly limited based on the fact that they’re only open once a week for two hours.
I feel this program brings together concepts that I’ve been playing around with since the beginning of the term that I have thus far been unsuccessful in talking about in a definite way. So going into the final few weeks I need to refine the program but I’m glad to have a concept about what I would like to go on my site finally. With continual cuts to school budgets requiring teachers to dip into their own pockets for funds a facility like this that could serve many teachers by sharing resources across many schools.
Here’s a first stab at what might be included an expanded SERC
Library Space
Teaching tools storage (ie. kits available for check out see ex. from Minnesota Science House)
Classrooms
Conference rooms
Lecture Hall (could serve larger teacher in-service educational events or field trips with students)
Lab Space (For example: My high school was in a rural location with a small creek running through it. We had the luxury of being able to walk to the creek take water samples, then walk back to the school and study the samples under microscopes and learn about water quality – urban schools don’t necessarily have this type of situation and rentable lab space would allow students to run experiments onsite.)
Space for evaluating building metrics (the idea here would be to have staff dedicated to measuring the performance of the building that could also be translated into educational resources)
Teacher’s Lounge/Study area
Didactic Urban Landscape (A portion of the site should be transformed into an educational landscape whose performance could be measured in a similar way to the building. Ie. stormwater flows, testing site for different types of bioswale vegetation etc.)
Also included would be a 10,000 sqft expansion to the Pepco building next door that houses the exhibit building shop. The site is around 90,000 sqft. I’m also working on trying to get a tour of that building as well.
I feel strongly about retaining a portion of the site for direct access to and from the River and East Bank Esplanade from Water Avenue. Currently the site serves as a pass through for hundreds of people coming to the Willamette for Regattas and Alder Creek Kayak’s boat house is located in the building next to the site.
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