Modern Architecture - The Mind Museum: Philippines

The Building Design

The space-age design of The Mind Museum is the brainchild of a team of architects from Lor Calma & Partners, led by renowned architect Ed Calma. The inspiration behind the building's futuristic, yet organic look was based off of cell growth and molecular structures.

Mirroring the functionality of nature, some features of the building's innovative and sustainable design include: slanted exterior walls to minimize the entry of sunlight, a specially curved roof for more efficient rain collection, and strategic orientation to utilize the shadows of adjacent buildings, all of which contribute to more energy efficiency. Ed counts the form and location of The Mind Museum as his favorite things about the museum; he believes that it has an interesting place in "a sea of box buildings and it celebrates the terminus of the [Bonifacio] High Street axis" – a combination that is sure to awe visitors.

Ed was drawn to The Mind Museum by the idea that it would influence a generation of Filipinos to see science and art in a different light. In particular, he hopes that the museum will help people to see the connection between the two fields, as well as remove the intimidating edge from science.



The Vision & Project

To build a home for science and to make it the FIRST WORLD-CLASS SCIENCE MUSEUM in the Philippines. It will be our defining legacy that will give the next generation the wings to fly against the challenge of a future shaped largely by service and technology. With over 150 inter-active “minds-on” and hands-on exhibits, the museum will be a venue that will present science as entertaining, fun, and engaging.

The Facility

The Mind Museum’s state of the art design will feature five galleries within its two levels:

1. The Story of the Universe: Its Beginning and Majesty

2. The Story of the Earth: Its Story Across the Breadth of Time

3. The Story of Life: The Exuberant Varieties of Life

4. The Story of the Atom: The Strange World of the Very Small

5. The Story of the Technology: The Showcase of Human Ingenuity

Fast Facts
Total Covered Floor Area - 7,595 sqm
(including the plaza)

Outdoor area - 6,935 sqm total outdoor area inclusive of 800 sqm enclosed area for the
Science-in-the-Park

Indoor Exhibition Area - 3,560 sqm
Office Areas - 260 sqm
Food and Retail Areas - 620 sqm
Number of Designers and Resource Scientists - approx. 50
Planned Opening Date - 3rd Quarter of 2011

Floor Map

Ground Floor

Second Floor

The Location

The museum will rise on J. Y. Campos Park, a 12,500 sqm prime lot at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC), a fast developing world-class business district. BGC is strategically located between the business hubs of Makati and Ortigas. The Mind Museum will be located at the west end of Bonifacio High Street, right across the future 6-star Shangri-La Hotel and the unified Philippine Stock Exchange.

Main Galleries

The exhibition concept envisioned for the science museum is unique and Filipino. The Mind Museum will present science through five main stories, taking off from our culture’s resonance with storytelling. The exhibition spans the entire range of nature's elements, gleaned from the galleries, namely: Atom, Life, Universe, Earth, and Technology.

Visitors can relax in a glass-encased café that will give them a view of the Science-in-the-Park. Themed as Nature’s Artful Play, this will be an extensive outdoor park where children and adults can continue their learning experience from inside the museum to the inter-active exhibits in the park.


The Story of the Atom
The Strange World of the Very Small

The Atom Gallery is the gallery with the most number of interactive exhibits. It will contain the very elemental forces that are so familiar that we take them for granted – gravity and electromagnetism. It will present the counterintuitive quantum world which resembles nothing in the ordinary, everyday experience, yet serves as the basis for much of the technology we find so common and take for granted – computers, mobile phones, lasers, and many medical technologies.

The Story of Life
The Exuberant Varieties of Life

The Life Gallery is the gallery which feature’s the defining exhibit of the museum: The Human Brain. The gallery will feature the exuberance of a living planet in all its forms. It will feature the various habitats that nurture an astonishing number and kinds of organisms. This gallery will also feature the inner spaces that inhabit this life in the form of molecules called DNA.

The Story of the Universe
Its Beginning and Majesty

The Universe Gallery will showcase humankind’s wondrous fascination with outer space, and will include the mini-planetarium. It will feature exhibits that will show how all of life, as we know it now, found its atomic beginnings in the stars in space. It will enfold visitors in the fundamental elements and forces that are at play in the universe. It will also include wondrous images from the Hubble Space Telescope as well as a graphic history of humankind’s quest into other parts of the solar system.

The Story of the Earth
Nature Across the Breadth of Time

The Earth Gallery will feature the first T-REX exhibit in the country along with other unique exhibits that will focus on the earth and nature. Knowing natural history is the way we can educate museum visitors on how long it took the planet to give us what we now inhabit. The Earth Gallery will feature natural history from 4.6 billion years ago.

The Story of Technology
A Showcase of Human Ingenuity

At 680 sqm, this is the largest of all the galleries, and is the only exhibition space on the second level, overlooking the other four galleries. Its centrepiece, The Human Face of Technology – a 360° screen showing a constantly updated video of stories told by people about their favorite technologies and why they love them.

This gallery presents technology not as a mere tool, gadget, or industrial advancement but as means to flesh out human values, to help us become better humans. Thus, the gallery is divided into five major themes with each theme occupying a Node. The themes of the Nodes are: How We Live, Who We Are, How We Know, How Things Work, and Here to There.

Science-in-the-Park

The 800 sqm Park will be the outdoor source of science fascination. Under the theme "Nature's Artful Play", the park will feature exhibits where visitors can learn science by enjoying and rediscovering anew, through play, the wonder of nature’s elements: sunlight, wind, water, and greenery. The park will include four main play pockets: Water, Math, Music, and Living Pockets.

Water Pocket

This will be an area that will playfully unleash the power and wonder of water. It will feature a whimsical bubble maker and a large water table with inter-related exhibits that will move guests to rediscover the role of water in their lives.

Featured exhibits:

* Archimedes Screw
* Tipping Buckets
* Boats
* Undershot Wheel
* Bubble Zone

Math Pocket

This will be the area that will show that Math tickles the mind as well as the senses. This will be mathematics in shapes and forms rendered in their most artistic and intriguing forms.

Featured exhibits:

* Seven Bridges of Konigsberg
* Mathematical Island (Patterns)
* Slide Trio
* Mobius Climbe

Music Pocket

This area will engage guests to make music from instruments laid out as parts of a funky orchestra al fresca.

Featured exhibits:

* Giant Flute
* Drums
* See-saw Rainsticko
* Singing Forest

Living Pocket

This will be the "wild" area of the park – where special plants will show guests their silent cleansing power as well as creatures who will invite guests to "get into their heads."

Featured exhibits:

* Creature Heads: Cobra, Philippine Eagle, Dragonfly & Hammerhead
* Plants that filter black water

Hallways: Nature's Webways

ach of the galleries will be connected by crucial links dubbed as Nature’s Webways. These will feature audio-visuals and exhibits that will help visitors make the transition in between the intricately woven stories of the galleries.

The Avenue of Life

This hallway will transport museum visitors to the second floor. On both sides of each escalator, there will be a mixed media of stained glass walls, video and graphic panels featuring the life in the five different environments: hydrovent, desert, tropical, temperate, and polar.

Connector for: Life Gallery & Technology Gallery

Inner-Space Track

This hallway will showcase exhibits that give a sense of curious anticipation as to how atoms could form to give us life. This corridor will mainly have beautiful artistic renderings of various molecules that are associated with life.

Connector for: Life Gallery & Atom Gallery

The Light Bridge

This hallway will be filled with exhibits on the different kinds of light that fills the universe, seen or unseen by the naked human eye. The exhibits will give the museum visitors an experience of light as beautiful, awesome, and useful.

Connector for: Atom Gallery & Universe Gallery

The Tunnel Craft

This hallway will be a two-way revolving tunnel that will have visuals of a rotating star field with images of space from the Hubble Telescope and of our spectacular Earth.

Connector for: Universe Gallery & Earth Gallery

Other Facilities

Halls and Rooms: Convergence Areas

Visitors will be welcomed by wide-open spaces prior to entering the five galleries. The Lobby, the Introductory Hall, the Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, and the Hall of Philippine Science all serve to initiate the visitors’ museum experience. The museum will offer the learning community venues for discussions, seminars, and workshops; these include the Theatre, the Mind Pods, and the Awesome Lab.

The Mariano K. Tan Hall

The Mariano K. Tan Hall will serve as the museum’s lobby. It will be an open space, lit and textured to lend a sense of excitement in anticipation of a unique adventure that the guests will experience in The Mind Museum. It will be an inviting place of first encounters with The Mind Museum staff and its guests. It will also be rented area for special events, such as product launches, receptions, and the like.

The Theatre

This will be the gathering place for groups and audiences of up to 200. This will be the venue for inspiring lectures of local and visiting scientists as well as presentations and shows that promote the public understanding of science as it reaches out to other fields of endeavour.

The Introductory Hall

A live presenter, a robot created by the Kokoro Company in Japan, will welcome visitors and introduce them to the over-arching philosophy and goals of the science museum. The robot will give visitors the basic information about the museum and the many possible ways they can discover and explore the story of science.

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

All visitors will go through a colourful and bright open space and have a delightful audio-visual experience of learning about the ten most beautiful experiments in science. These include how Sir Isaac Newton discovered that white light has all the colors and how a very shy scientist named Cavendish figured out how much the world weighed. These will be shown on LCD screens encased in silver metal columns, positioned to enhance a sense of wonder and an initiation into the very unique world of The Mind Museum.

The Hall of Philippine Science (Bulwagan ng Agham)

The Hall will showcase the country’s scientific contributions to the world and society. It will feature Filipino institutions, groups and individuals who have made an impact on science and technology. This is a “must-pass” area and museum visitors will be welcomed to a hall that is designed by Filipinos and will display Filipino artistry as well.

The Awesome Lab

This lab will be the hub of cool science experiments that groups can carry-out guided by experts. These will include but not be limited to awesome experiments in physics, chemistry as well as in the life and earth sciences. The laboratory design reflects the arrangements of fixtures that invite an openness of mind, in a fellowship of curiosity and discovery.

The Mind Pods (I and II)

The Mind Pods will be comprised of two meeting rooms which will host lectures, forums and workshops. These will be learning venues for academicians, students, researchers, and individuals interested in science. The Mind Pods will be located on the second floor, with an expansive view of the sprawling out-door J.Y. Campos Park and Bonifacio High Street.

Visit their website THE MIND MUSEUM