I have a passion for paleontology and have been participating in my high school's paleontology program for over two years. During my research, I visited many paleontology and natural history museums and noticed that many of these museums are designed to organize exhibits based on geological time order. Alternatively, they display specimens based on taxonomy or geological location. During my studies, I always found side by side comparisons - same body piece, across different organisms - helpful for getting a sense of overall evolution trends. So, I want to design a vertebrate paleontological museum based on skeleton parts rather than precedent factors. The purpose of this museum is to help people view and understand similarities and differences of identical skeleton parts across various species. This will help viewers understand anatomical differences across vertebrate species, and encourage thinking on taphonomic factors.
My museum focuses on bones, so I drew inspiration from skeletal parts. I first studied how bones are shaped and connected. For example, bones typically interpenetrate, and concave shapes generally connect to convex surfaces. To reflect this in my design, I made the museum's building parts geometrically intersect. While researching, vertebral columns also caught my interest as they possess unique curved shapes that are very satisfying to the eyes. They also create a "moving" vibe due to the many bones that connect to form the spine, which is something I wanted to incorporate into my design.
Next, I considered the logic of the exhibition. Each skeletal system contains two separate skeletons: the axial skeleton and the appendicular skeleton. The former includes skull, vertebral column, and thoracic cage. The latter includes the shoulder girdle & upper limbs, and the pelvic girdle & lower limbs. I eventually decided to divide my exhibition into areas: one for skulls, one for the thoracic cavity (which includes the vertebral column and thoracic cage), and one for girdles & limbs. With these things in mind, I drew some rough sketches of possible architecture combinations (left) and ceiling designs based on the vertebral column.
