The NC Museum of Natural Sciences is the largest institution of its kind in the Southeast and the most visited museum in North Carolina.
Facing challenges with maintenance, accessibility, visibility, gathering and connectivity to adjacent sites, the museum began exploring options to renovate and provide a more fluid and accessible pedestrian approach to the main entrance, dedicated gathering space for school groups, outdoor private event space, and an improved visual and spatial relationship to the adjacent Nature Resource Center (NRC) and Bicentennial Mall.
Surface 678 created a site design inspired by geologic patterns resulting from tectonic shifts. Our design team extracted these patterns from the map and applied them to the site design, providing a framework for pedestrian walkways, gathering spaces, seat walls, lighting, and signage location that begin to tell the story of the evolution of natural systems that exist in our state. An event space with a front porch atmosphere is planned.
The project is currently fundraising to move forward with the anticipated design.
