![]() Compressed by lease lines and fire roads, the plan respects the earlier design but departs from it in significant ways. The budget kept our design for the 21,000 -square foot Phase I as simple as we could make it. Programming workshops ranked options and impacts resulting in a two-story, three-part scheme that houses new facilities, clarifies entry, and restructures group movement. ![]() Respectful Difference: Re-Definition and Improvement: Phase I grew from our master plan for phased expansion. A realignment of the entry drive forced visitors to approach the complex from the rear, obscuring the entrance in a confusing sequence that began at the loading dock. Infrastructure and life support systems were patched together and barely functional. The buildings had matured well but expanded programs and intense visitor use had rendered exhibit and work spaces inadequate. Our critical guides were the veteran curators who work these spaces, designing and maintaining their own exhibits on diversity, ecology, adaptation, and behavior of indigenous marine life forms. Free-standing tanks served by exposed electrical and plumbing systems openly display mechanical functions. The look is fishing village industrial with occasional naval riffs. It clustered indoor and outdoor exhibit spaces, an auditorium, wet laboratories and offices around a central open space wrapped in chain-link fencing. ![]() The tightly bounded site, leased from the Harbor Department, overlooks a beach park and wildlife refuge and adjoins salt marshes, tide pools, and one of the busiest harbors in the world.Ī Unique Institution with Problems of Success: The original one-story, 23,000 square foot facility was the influential mid-career work of Frank Gehry. Since 1981 it has come to serve 400,000 school-age visitors a year and its outreach programs serve hundreds of schools. This architecturally famous City aquarium functions as a teaching / research facility for early and continuing education in the marine environment of southern California.
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