17 Sep 2014
Miami's Museum of Science gets US$5m donation for health and wellness
BY Tom Anstey
The Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science (formerly known as the Miami Science Museum), which is nearing the halfway stage of moving to a new US$275m (€212m, £168.5m) facility in downtown Miami, has received a donation of US$5m (€3.9m, £3.1m) to fund health and wellness programmes when the new facility launches in 2016.
To be located inside the new science museum, the Baptist Health People & Science Gallery will teach people “how to make better choices for a healthy life”, according to the museum’s president and CEO Gillian Thomas.
The new gallery will be dedicated to health and wellness, and will allow visitors to use technology to explore various lifestyle choices. The gallery will include zones highlighting the science and psychology behind eating, meditation, body language, brain function and technology for prosthetics and surgery. Also included inside the 9,000sq ft (836sq m) area will be an energy dance floor, virtual restaurant, science bar for cooking demonstrations and an aquaculture tank.
As part of the donation from not-for-profit care organisation Baptist Health South Florida, 27,000 school children will be granted free access to the museum, including transportation.
The new 250,000sq ft (32,225sq m) facility, being constructed on the Miami waterfront, broke ground in early 2012 and is set to be completed by the end of 2015, opening to the public in early 2016. An architectural team led by London-based Grimshaw Architects worked on the design of the new museum, while Skanska USA is operating as construction manager and Hill International is overseeing the whole project.
Structured around a ‘living core’ comprised of terrestrial and aquatic exhibits, featuring an aquarium, planetarium, hands-on exhibits and interactive digital technology, the Museum of Science is being touted as the “next generation” of science museum and is looking to create links between the South Florida region and the global education, science, tourism and business communities.
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