Exploratorium Wins New Orleans Design Award

A new science education center, notable because it is the first collaboration between the Exploratorium and a science research laboratory, has been honored for its design. The New Orleans chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has given its 2007 Award of Honor (in the category of "Divine Detail") to the new Science Education Center at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Livingston, Louisiana.

The jury of principals from leading architectural firms said of the LIGO Science Education Center, "Form and function come together in an exciting and unexpected way in the design of this building where a dynamic exterior wall suggests its purpose: a science education center."

Wave Wall, a kinetic wind sculpture involving 120 27-foot-long pendulums installed across the entire 85-foot length of the center's façade, was exclusively designed for the site by Exploratorium artists.
This award carries extra significance as AIA New Orleans seeks to highlight the best in design and revitalization after the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. A total of twelve awards were chosen from over 70 projects submitted, more entries than the chapter had received in any previous year.

Opened in November 2006, the science center was already making waves with students, educators, and scientists. The new LIGO Science Education Center incorporates the accumulated knowledge of the Exploratorium's decades of experience in developing techniques for the informal learning of science. It includes over three dozen exhibits originally developed at the Exploratorium and educational outreach programs for students and teachers. The collaboration is a project of the Exploratorium's Center for Museum Partnerships and was made possible with support from the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Michael Zucker, senior scientist at the LIGO Laboratory, now at MIT, and John Thacker, LIGO's education and outreach program leader, worked with Exploratorium experts to create the new facility. The Exploratorium-LIGO team worked with New Orleans architecture firm Eskew+Dumez+Ripple on the building design, all the way down to such details as classroom desks, as well as exhibits.

Because the observatory uses laser technology and the physics principle of wave interference in order to detect ripples in the space-time fabric that was predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, the exhibits that were chosen from the Exploratorium's collection demonstrate the physics concepts underlying this work. The over three dozen hands-on exhibits cover topics of waves, oscillations, gravity, resonance, lasers, interferometers, and even waves in music.

Beyond educational expertise, the Exploratorium contributed the artistry to enliven the exterior of the new LIGO Science Education Center with the kinetic sculpture Wave Wall. The team from the San Francisco-based museum -- including senior scientist Thomas Humphrey, senior artists Peter Richards and Susan Schwartzenberg, and exhibit developers Shawn Lani and Charles Sowers -- came up with a dynamic artwork that combines art and science and makes the exterior of the building memorable.

"This part of Louisiana has a lot of wind. We came up with the idea of thirty-foot-long pendulums that would be wind detectors," says Humphrey. He points out that the wind detectors mirror the observatory's mission as a gravity wave detector.

The Exploratorium's Center for Museum Partnerships reaches out to the world with exhibits and teaching programs in the interest of fulfilling its mission of "going beyond the walls" of the Exploratorium to foster a culture of learning through collaborations with museums and other organizations, both in the U.S. and abroad.

The Exploratorium is a museum of science, art, and human perception founded in 1969 by physicist Frank Oppenheimer. The Exploratorium's mission is to create a culture of learning through innovative environments, programs, and tools that help people nurture their curiosity about the world around them. -- www.exploratorium.edu