Brooklyn studio O’Neill McVoy Architects has tailored a historic powerhouse right into a museum for kids within the Bronx that highlights the historic constructing whereas including playful particulars corresponding to a curved mass-timber walkway.
O’Neill McVoy Architects inserted the Bronx Youngsters’s Museum into the second flooring of the rectilinear constructing “with previous and new in a symbiotic relation heightening the qualities of the opposite,” the studio mentioned.
Positioned on the Harlem River and Mill Pond Park, the 1925 Historic Bronx Terminal Market Powerhouse was decommissioned in 2004 and the constructing’s exterior was restored in 2009, leaving the inside concrete and metal loft area open for a brand new program.
Owned by the New York Metropolis Division of Parks, it broke floor in 2017 however wasn’t accomplished till 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and bureaucratic delays.
The 15,160-square foot (1,400-square metre) museum is accessed by a double-height, river-side foyer area that opens to curving varieties designed particularly for a kid’s perspective.
As the primary facility within the burrow devoted to younger kids, “the design’s circulate creates a brand new form of area, in contrast to town’s mobile rooms and avenue grids, that connects Bronx youngsters to the expertise of pure panorama and the waterfront”, the studio mentioned.
Drawing from Jean Piaget’s e-book Kid’s Conception of Area, the studio used a collection of unspooling areas catered to kids below 10 years previous.
Museum guests transfer by the area by way of ramps, and centered displays are separated by partial-height, curved picket and translucent acrylic partition partitions that spiral, diverge and reconnect.
The areas step up, transferring from the Waterways exhibition that directs views to the neighbouring river, throughout a bridge, to the Cloud efficiency mezzanine that options an interactive set up by native artist Jerome LaMarr known as Bronxtopia.
The LEED Gold-certified challenge is the “first use of curved cross-laminated timber (CLT) within the U.S.,” in response to the studio.
The CLT was reportedly sustainably harvested and chosen for its mild weight and power.
It was “fabricated with superior digital expertise permitting for various radii arcs to kind natural area”.
“Massive wall and guardrail interlocking panels, many with pebble-shaped home windows, have been molded and CNC-milled to precise measurement permitting fast meeting on web site,” the group continued, referencing the customized molds of Charles and Ray Eames’ laminated plywood splints.
The CLT panels additionally interlock with etched, recycled-acrylic panels which are softer to the contact than glass.
Overhead, the uncovered structural beams and mechanical providers have been painted blue, as was the acoustical plaster, to kind a sky the place cloth ducts cling as clouds.
The museum additionally makes use of translucent movie on the east-facing home windows to mitigate the daylight that sweeps by the open plan, and dimmable LED fixtures and daylighting sensors optimize mild.
Operable home windows enable for air flow and sensors assist scale back HVAC vitality consumption.
The outside of the brick constructing was comparatively untouched however the “distinctive turrets are given new life with prismatic movie and spectral LED lighting to function beacons for the youngsters’s museum locally.”
Equally, Olson Kundig inserted a curved timber ark right into a concrete market corridor to create the ANOHA kids’s museum in Berlin.
The images is by Paul Warchol.
Venture credit:
Architect: O’Neill McVoy Architects
Beth O’Neill, AIA, Principal
Chris McVoy, Principal
Ruso Margishvili, Affiliate-in-Cost
Richard Stora, Venture Architect
Penelope Phylactopoulos, Meghan O’Shea, Trevor Hollyn Taub, Irmak Ciftci, Venture Group
Structural engineer: Silman
Mechanical engineer: Plus Group Consulting Engineering, PLCC
Electrical engineer: Plus Group Consulting Engineering, PLCC
Basic contractor: A Quest Company
Lighting designer: Tillotson Design Associates
Code advisor: CODE LLC
LEED advisor: ADS Engineers
AV/IT/Safety advisor: TM Expertise Companions
Displays: Bronx-connected artists by the museum’s ‘Arts Builds Neighborhood’ program
