Tenji is pleased to announce that we have been awarded the contract to build a LSS for the new Cabela’s store in Charleston, West Virginia. The 80,000-square-foot store will be located in the Southridge Centre shopping area off U.S. Highway 119, and will be Cabela’s second retail store in West Virginia, joining the Wheeling location. Tenji will be constructing a 6,000 gallon freshwater display, a quarantine system, and bait holding system.
Location of Cabela's new store in West Virginia.
Tenji is pleased to announce that we have been selected to construct the seawater laboratory and associated systems at Bigelow Laboratory’s new Center for Ocean Health in East Boothbay Harbor, Maine. The third building on the new 64-acre campus, The Center for Ocean Health and its associated shore facility will occupy 19,200 square feet and have facilities for plankton and algae research.
“The COH will bring scientists together in a unified facility, where we can develop a multi-disciplinary, multi-scale approach to ocean health that will provide improved management tools to support healthy, productive and resilient ocean ecosystems,” said Laboratory Executive Director, Dr. Graham Shimmield.
Tenji will be working closely with ABM Mechanical and Consigli Construction to create this state-of-the-art facility. When fully completed, the Ocean Science and Education campus will provide over 60,000 square feet of laboratory, education and administrative space; replacing the Laboratory’s leased facilities in West Boothbay Harbor.
Bigelow Center for Ocean Health Rendering (courtesy of Perkins + Will).
Tenji has been engaged in the design and planning of a new science center for several months now. It is not due to open until the fall of 2012, but here is a preview of the Mobius Science Center in Spokane, Washington.
The living components will feature two large, 10’ x 4’ glass tanks of turtles and a variety of other reptiles. Adjacent to these exhibits, there will be a wall of five terrestrial displays featuring insects and spiders and snakes (oh my!).
There will also be a a variety of hands on science and technology exhibits to explore. Below is a description of the museum from the Mobius web site:
Mobius Spokane was founded in 2005 through the merger of the Inland Northwest Science and Technology Center and the Children’s Museum of Spokane. With the mission of stimulating minds, inspiring careers and instilling wonder across the Inland Northwest with thought-provoking, entertaining and experiential science programs and exhibits, our first phase was launched with Mobius Kids, an inquiry-based, informal science and arts education center that serves the K-6 population. Since opening its doors in September 2005, nearly 400,000 guests have visited; underserved families have benefited through camp scholarships, bus passes and sponsored family memberships. The second phase of Mobius Spokane will be Mobius Science Center (MSC), a 26,000 SF facility featuring seventy-five hands-on, interactive exhibits with complementary programs and demonstrations. Our multi-sensory, multi-generational approach to learning will encourage engagement in the sciences and will be a substantive entertainment destination for our region’s families.
As these components get further developed, we’ll post more images. Stand by!
One of the most powerful earthquakes on record was at the border of south-east Missouri and western Tennessee in 1812. Known as the New Madrid earthquake, it was so strong that that it caused the Mississippi River to breach and flood the newly created sink holes formed by the quake.
One water feature that remains from the quake is the 18,000 acre Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee. It’s a famous sport fishing location and important habitat to the wildlife that abounds there.
Rendering of the new focus exhibits.
The Discovery Place of America, currently under construction in Union City, Tennessee, will have an area dedicated to educating visitors about this interesting natural area. Tenji was awarded the opportunity to design/build the live exhibits and associated life support systems. The centerpiece display is a 20,000 gallon interpretation of the flooded forest that still exists in Reelfoot Lake and their associated fish community.
There are also eight semi-aquatic to terrestrial focus displays that highlight a variety of other species that flank the Reelfoot Lake display.
Tenji’s first step is get the Reelfoot tank in the building in pieces and assemble it so the rest of the building can be completed. We hope to have the big tank in by the spring of 2012. The tank is currently in production in San Diego.
We’ll remobilize when the space is ready to install the remaining focus displays and finish the insert and LSS on the big tank.
After an intense week of plumbing, electrical, and controls work, the new Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Science (CoE CRES) Research Facility seawater system is nearly complete. All LSS systems were thoroughly tested and now we wait for completion of the structure of the outdoor coral lab to be built so we can finish.
The new Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Science (CoE CRES) Research Facility continues to come together. This past week we finished installing some of the control/monitoring systems and worked with the plumbers to begin connecting all the LSS equipment. Our friend Julian Sprung of Two Little Fishies stopped by to take a look at the installation and we spent a very enjoyable evening having sushi in Fort Lauderdale and then went to hear Stan Waterman talk about some of his recent underwater shoots in Indonesia. It was quite inspiring to hear Stan, a man in his 80s, talk with such enthusiasm about discovering macro videography after a lifetime of shooting large subjects like sharks and whales. He was quite literally giddy with excitement talking about nudibranchs that he caught on film.
Julian Sprung, pictured on the roof of the new facility, stopped by our project at NOVA to take a look at the LSS.
Last week, Tenji made a special visit to our longtime friends at Aquamarine Fukushima in Onahama, Japan. The first floor of the aquarium was ravaged by the tsunami and subsequently all of the life support equipment was incapacitated. The vast majority of the collection was lost and damage to the interior was extreme. Amazingly, the glass building remained intact.
Our visit was just 7 months after the disaster and it was stunning to see how things had largely returned to normal for the aquarium. It was very inspirational and impressive to see the AMF building, exhibits, animals and especially healthy happy friends. We presented a congratulatory plaque from Tenji to Director Abe.
Not to be misleading, just a few miles to the north we toured entire neighborhoods that were destroyed. It appears the effects of the waves can be dramatically different given variables of the structure’s orientation and position on the coast.
Recently Tenji’s frequently featured and prolific artist pal Ray Troll was in town to open a new exhibit at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. The theme of “Green Seas, Blue Seas” is the history of fishing and fishing culture in Monterey Bay. The anchovy (greenish) and the sardine (bluish) are featured characters as the title indicates, but a few dozen pieces cover all the main fish and fishermen stories over the history of the industry in the Bay. As always, there are important biological, sustainability, and cultural themes throughout the exhibit, as well as no lack of the inimitable Troll humor.
Ray also wrote an original limerick for each piece and Tenji got an opportunity to offer a little bit of pre-production wording suggestions (we discovered that limericks are hard to write!).
If you are in the area, check it out. It runs through January 29th, 2012, and the Pacific Grove Museum admission is free!
It’s global knowledge that on March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by a massive earthquake and subsequent horrific tsunami. A large section of the northeast coastline, cities, villages, harbors and industry was destroyed. Aquamarine Fukushima aquarium, a long-time Tenji collaborator, had a 16 foot wave pass through the length of the building. All but the mammals and birds perished.
Incredibly, after a few weeks away from the aquarium, the staff returned, rolled up their sleeves, worked tirelessly, and amazingly managed to reopen a mere 120 days after the disaster on the anniversary of their 11th year in business.
Tenji is making a special trip to AMF in early November to present Director Yoshitaka Abe (coincidentally on his 71st birthday!), staff, and volunteers with a plaque and other gifts. It will be a somber journey because there are remnants of the destruction in the vicinity.
The AMF team truly represents the resilience of the human spirit and we are honored to work with them.
Commerative plaque that Tenji will present to Aquamarine Fukushima.
Live video footage from the construction site of the new research facility is now viewable online. In a few weeks, you may catch a glimpse of Tenji staff as they install the new state-of-the-art seawater system and lab for the Center.
The following is some background on the facility from NOVA’s website:
Nova Southeastern University has established and will construct the Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Science (CoE CRES) Research Facility. The activities in this multi-disciplinary research building are to address national and international priorities in coral reef research in five thematic areas: 1) Impacts of global and local stressors; 2) Geospatial analysis and mapping; 3) Deep sea coral reefs and biodiversity; 4) Genetic and genomic connectivity; and 5) Hydrodynamics. The CoE will include space for offices, laboratories, collaboration, research training, and fieldwork staging. It’s designed to promote high quality and impactful research by current and new faculty, researchers, visiting scientists, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students.
The 86,000-square-foot CoE is to be located at NOVA’s Oceanographic Center and its National Coral Reef Institute (NCRI) on the ocean side of Port Everglades in Hollywood, Florida. Funded in part by a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at a cost of over $30 million, the research facility is expected to create 22 new academic jobs and 300 construction jobs; employ 50 graduate students; and preserve 22 existing academic jobs. The CoE CRES will be the only research facility in the nation dedicated entirely to coral reef ecosystem science. Major goals include not only fundamental research but also to finding management and conservation solutions to pressing coral reef issues. Completion is scheduled by May 2012.
