The
Design

The plan outlines a configuration for the new space, split evenly between public areas and back-of-house facilities, including collections storage and laboratory spaces with proposed exhibits that will be bold and exciting.

The Mapping Gallery illustrates the extinction periods and geological chronology acting as an introduction to the main Paleontology Gallery. This gallery connects to the Ice Age and Lake Agassiz gallery from which visitors exit to the shop at the end of their visit. The galleries have wide span steel grid column spacing and sufficient height for hanging large fossils and large interactive displays. There will be limited windows to allow for immersive and interactive exhibits requiring a high degree of light control. Featuring the largest collection of marine fossils in Canada, these immersive experiences represent the ancient Western Interior Seaway which once flooded the area, with rippling projected light and suspended fossils that swim above the visitors.

Other galleries, representing the Ice Age, have full-wall murals, allowing an immersive experience. Highlighting the glacial Lake Agassiz and more recent chronologically than the fossil galleries, at only 12,000 years old, it was important that this gallery looked and felt completely different than the Late Cretaceous marine fossil galleries that house the other main part of the Centre’s collection. This is achieved not only by use of a different color palette, but also by displaying the collections posed on the ground rather than swimming above the visitor, creating a visual distinction between the eras of life that have made this location home over the eons.