FEATURE
museums
over of the renovated historic building to exhibit installation teams a year ahead of the grand opening. In 2015, many trade partners began work to restore, adapt, and enhance the refrigerated warehouse. After gaining designation as a historical landmark, the museum’s first step in the construction was the surgical removal of a 1982 addition followed by the challenging removal of the roof and every other floor to expand the floor-to-ceiling heights to the 20-ft. minimum required for modern museum exhibits. The selective demolition of existing floors required careful coordination of the structural retrofit of existing concrete columns with steel-plate reinforcing. Due to the technical challenges involved, buildings are rarely expanded below grade. Clark Construction performed an innovative underpinning and support process to lower the building’s basement level by 5 ft. to make room for the museum’s central plant. The team also installed a robust foundations system to provide support for the modified historic structure, which included driving more than 7,000 linear ft. of piles. STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGIES
Museum of the Bible leaders had a progressive vision for the facility that involved leveraging cutting-edge technology to create a multi-dimensional visitor experience. Clark subsidiary, S2N Technology Group, helped achieve that vision, serving as a single point of coordination between museum representatives, Clark, exhibit designers, subcontractors, and technical vendors. S2N streamlined management of the museum’s low-voltage technology scope and helped save critical time in the final stages of the project. Upon entry, visitors are greeted by a soaring digital arcade ceiling that stretches 140 ft. in length and is 15 ft. wide. The kaleidoscope-like feature comprises 555 LED panels, and is one of the largest LED screens in the U.S. In addition to the ceiling, “digital docents” provide a personal touring system and museum experience unlike any other. The hand-held navigation devices can be programed based on visitor interests and serve to guide patrons through exhibits, providing supplementary information based on a visitor’s positions in the museum, accurate to within 6 in. The World Stage Theater, a 472-seat performance theater on the fifth floor, provides yet another unique experience for visitors. The theater takes its shape from the flowing fabric of a tabernacle tent. The rippled ribbons surrounding the house of the theater hide lighting and projectors that provide an immersive 3D mapped projection experience, where all surfaces from stage to ceiling are enveloped into the moving display. The facility represents the future of cultural institutions. Not only is it revolutionizing the way visitors experience history, the story of its design and construction is changing the way museums come to life. It serves as a model of what can be achieved through creative engineering and superior collaboration. In the first four months of operation, the museum welcomed more than 300,000 visitors. At this pace, the museum will see more than 1.4-million visitors in its first year, ranking it as one of the top museum attractions in
The museum features five floors of exhibit space, including three permanent exhibit levels, as well as research laboratories and libraries, collection storage, a lecture hall, a performing-arts venue, 500-seat ballroom, scholar residences, classrooms, offices, and a rooftop garden and restaurant. Photo: Peter Cane Photography, courtesy Museum of the Bible
Washington. CA Sarah Ghorbanian, LEED AP, is a project manager for the Museum of the Bible project. She coordinated the design and fabrication of the work of the museum’s six exhibit design firms with the design and construction of the base building. She also oversaw project construction administration. Jared Oldroyd, project executive, Museum of the Bible, is a vice president at Clark Construction Group LLC, Bethesda, MD, and serves as business unit leader on public assembly and private development projects throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. 22
COMMERCI A L A RCHI T EC T URE
JUNE 2018
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Museum of the Bible
