Our contributions are a dozen living exhibits from turtles, snakes, zebra danios, freshwater mussels and more. One display features decomposing creatures being consumed by detritivores to tell the story of the cycle of life on the forest floor.

The Museum is a dynamic place and as one of the original founders said in the late 1800’s:

The building of a museum is a never-ending work. A finished museum is a dead museum…

-Herbert Hutchinson Brimley

The new wing will be opening in April 2012 and will be a must-see if in the Raleigh area.

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“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).

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 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.

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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.

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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!

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