Grey Matter | Louisville Children's Museum - International Ideas Competition (2014)
Size:
22,226 m²
250,000 ft²
Design:
2014
Program:
The master plan included a pocket park, a business incubator, and a parking garage. The museum includes galleries, offices, ticketing, gift shop, temporary exhibits, auditorium, on-site below-grade parking
The project was an open, international ideas competition to design a children's museum and situate it in a mini-campus just south of downtown Louisville, Kentucky. There are several historic building in the immediate context but the museum and new structures were to be contemporary and iconic, attracting visitors to the area to help increase spin-off commercial investment. The mini-campus required that design teams consider the children's museum, high-tech incubator, parking garage and pocket park as an interconnected set of urban infill projects that would help to define the street corridors and revitalize a major intersection. The museum had a zoning limit of 4 stories above grade and one below, respecting the street setbacks and a special requirement that all floors of the museum be connected by ramps for accessibility and greater safety in anticipation of large groups of children.
The museum brief also requested that the designs seek to achieve the most sustainable solutions to the project and the expression o these concepts in the building be considered an educational opportunity - the building as a didactic exhibition and educational opportunity communicated through design.
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