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San Francisco’s new $300 million Exploratorium
Arcadia Weekly Apr 29, 2013
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When I visit a city like San Francisco, I like to stay at least a couple nights. But I recently had the opportunity to fly there for the day to be a part of something really cool – the grand reopening of the city’s historic, world-famous Exploratorium.
Located at Pier 15 in the heart of the revitalized San Francisco waterfront, the new facility greatly improves visitor access and dramatically enhances the size and scope of the museum. With three times more space overall than its previous home, the new Exploratorium features 150 new exhibits among more than 600 that will be on view. For the first time, the Exploratorium expands its investigations into the San Francisco Bay, the city, and outdoor landscape.
Designed by EHDD Architects, the new site features the Bay Observatory, an all-glass building, and The Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery and Terrace, located on the second level, overlooking the waterfront and the city and is designed to allow visitors to explore the science of the bay, the landscape, and the human impacts that have shaped the Bay Area.
“The Fisher Bay Observatory building is an elegant two-story steel pavilion at the east end of Pier 15 that contains an open plaza and pays homage to the clean lines of Pier 15, yet stands out with its taut façade,” says Marc L’Italien, EHDD design principal.
The new Exploratorium offers 1.5 acres of free public space – a part of the Outdoor Gallery, for visitors to enjoy the views and play with participatory exhibits tied to the surrounding environment.
The 330,000 sq-ft indoor/outdoor project was designed and constructed with the goal of becoming the largest net-zero energy museum in the United States, if not the world. The entire project is a real-time educational exhibit, with live energy use and photovoltaic production data on public display. It is also the first major, permanent development on the San Francisco waterfront since construction of the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark a decade ago.
During my visit I discovered a giant, 12 ft by 8 ft mirror in the Central Gallery. Super curvy and psychedelic, the mirror twists and contorts visitors into a wacky upside down world, full of puzzles and intrigue.
“Walk toward the mirror from a distance of about nine feet,” says Senior Scientist and optics aficionado Paul Doherty. “Your eyes, which are good at locating objects in three dimensions, report to your brain that there’s an image of you hanging upside down between you and the mirror that you can seemingly reach out and high five. That’s amazing!”
Another cool exhibit is the Plankton Populations, located in the East Gallery. In this interactive display, visitors can get up close and personal with microscopic marine organisms called phytoplankton and use special lenses to see what they look like and to find out which live in different parts of the ocean at various times of year.
”Because the exhibit is based on real data, if you were able to look in the ocean with a microscope, this is what you’d be likely to see,” says Associate Museum Curator Jennifer Frazier.
The new facility at Pier 15 also features more than 40 new art projects. One of the highlights of these displays is Fog Bridge created by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya. This interesting project uses a fog installation system, stretching across the 150-ft-long pedestrian bridge that spans the water between Piers 15 and 17. Water pumped at high pressure through more than 800 nozzles creates an immersive environment that shrouds participants in mist and puts their own senses, perception, and surroundings at the center of their experience.
The Exploratorium is located at San Francisco’s Pier 15 on the Embarcadero. General admission is $25 for adults and $19 for kids, students and seniors. For more information, call (415) 528-4444 or visit: www.exploratorium.edu.
-Story by Greg Aragon/Courtesy Photo
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