The Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine (CMTM) officially opened last Thursday, June 24, in its new 30,000-sf location at Thompson’s Point along the Fore River in Portland.
This location allows the facility to expand it programming and services in ways that its former 15,000-sf location, in Portland’s Arts District, restricted. The new building—offering the state-of-the-art Maddy’s Theatre with 100 seats, a STEM science center, a floor devoted to arts, culture, and community, and offices and meeting rooms—opens with limited capacity and other protocols in place to protect visitors and staff during the pandemic. Once it opens fully, the Museum and Theatre to reach over 200,000 visitors per year.
Bruner/Cott Architects led this project, which connects the CMTM to the site’s industrial shipping and railroad heritage. “We began this project nearly six years ago, building on our firm’s long history of museum and gallery design,” recalls firm Principal Jason Forney. “A true collaboration between our firm and our client has produced a building that embodies the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine’s mission and goals for its new venue, certain to attract visitors from near and far.”
The three-floor building’s proportions and window patterns are inspired by Thompson Point’s historic brick structures and steel cross-bracing. The exterior cladding of colorful metal shingles is arranged in a dynamic pattern. An outdoor play area is adjacent to the waterfront landscape.
Floor-to-ceiling glass surrounds the building’s 20-ft-high entry lobby, which connects the inside and outside and brings in natural light. The building's exhibit spaces incorporate visuals and programming that connect to Maine’s culture.
COST-SAVING SUSTAINABILITY
CMTM's new location, once the site of a railcar repair yard, was designed to blend in with its natural surroundings.
The project’s building team, which included construction manager Zachau Construction, employed sustainable strategies that addressed the challenges of a brownfield site that was once a railway repair yard. The project pre-loaded the building area to compact the soil and minimize off-site removal. Low wattage LED lighting was used throughout the building, and a VRF (variable refrigeration flow) system was installed for heating and cooling. The Museum site is also close to local, regional, and international public transportation.
To help pay for this project, the estimated construction cost of which was $7 million, the Children’s Museum & Theatre surpassed its $14 million fundraising goal, having raised over $15 million from more than 500 donors and the proceeds of the sale of its former building at 142 Free Street. CMTM worked with Nextstage Design to conceptualize and align its programming with its fundraising capabilities.
“As we move past the pandemic, we are enthusiastic about all the experiences our new building and its innovative, interactive exhibits and state-of-the-art theatre will bring to fans of our previous facility, as well as new visitors to Maine from across the nation and the world,” says CMTM Executive Director Julie Butcher.
Related Stories
| May 22, 2014
No time for a trip to Dubai? Team BlackSheep's drone flyover gives a bird's eye view [video]
Team BlackSheep—devotees of filmmaking with drones—has posted a fun video that takes viewers high over the city for spectacular vistas of a modern architectural showcase.
| May 22, 2014
IKEA to convert original store into company museum
Due to open next year, the museum is expected to attract 200,000 people annually to rural Älmhult, Sweden, home of the first ever IKEA store.
| May 21, 2014
Gehry unveils plan for renovation, expansion of Philadelphia Museum of Art [slideshow]
Gehry's final design reorganizes and expands the building, adding more than 169,000 sf of space, much of it below the iconic structure.
| May 20, 2014
Kinetic Architecture: New book explores innovations in active façades
The book, co-authored by Arup's Russell Fortmeyer, illustrates the various ways architects, consultants, and engineers approach energy and comfort by manipulating air, water, and light through the layers of passive and active building envelope systems.
| May 19, 2014
What can architects learn from nature’s 3.8 billion years of experience?
In a new report, HOK and Biomimicry 3.8 partnered to study how lessons from the temperate broadleaf forest biome, which houses many of the world’s largest population centers, can inform the design of the built environment.
| May 19, 2014
Calatrava wins court case concerning 'Calatrava bleeds you dry' website
A judge has ordered the left-wing political party Esquerra Unida to pay €30,000 to Santiago Calatrava because of "insulting and degrading" website.
| May 15, 2014
First look: 9/11 Memorial Museum opens to first-responders, survivors, 9/11 families [slideshow]
The 110,000-sf museum is filled with monumental artifacts from the tragedy and exhibits that honor the lives of every victim of the 2001 and 1993 attacks.
| May 13, 2014
Steven Holl's sculptural Institute for Contemporary Art set to break ground at VCU
The facility will have two entrances—one facing the city of Richmond, Va., the other toward VCU's campus—to serve as a connection between "town and gown."
| May 13, 2014
19 industry groups team to promote resilient planning and building materials
The industry associations, with more than 700,000 members generating almost $1 trillion in GDP, have issued a joint statement on resilience, pushing design and building solutions for disaster mitigation.
| May 13, 2014
Libeskind wins competition to design Canadian National Holocaust Monument
A design team featuring Daniel Libeskind and Gail Dexter-Lord has won a competition with its design for the Canadian National Holocaust Monument in Toronto. The monument is set to open in the autumn of 2015.
