by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

How Do You . . . design a world-class science center featuring a frozen, mammoth, and still-buried prehistoric beast.

Summary: The remains of a wooly mammoth, an ancient relative of elephants, preserved in permanently frozen soil—permafrost—will now be researched and displayed at the World Mammoth and Permafrost Museum in the city of Yakutsk in Siberia. New York City-based Leeser Architecture will create a sloping, angular complex elevated at the base of a mountain called the Tchoutchour Mouran. The site will be elevated 20 feet above ice on cone-shaped stilts to keep it insulated from the surface permafrost. Inside, visitors can “float” upwards on a tube escalator and observe scientists while being surrounded by sloping gardens. The museum, scheduled to open in 2009, will be energy efficient and ecological, the architects say, with research facilities, exhibit galleries, and an underground permafrost gallery displaying the remains of the Siberian wooly mammoth.

The World Mammoth and Permafrost Museum in Siberia will be designed as a series of geometric shapes, primarily triangular, that come together to represent the variety of shapes that permafrost forms when it shifts. Even in summer the temperature of permafrost soil is at or below the freezing point of water, so it forms in ice-crystal shapes. The structure, elevated 20 feet on conical stilts, will keep visitors warm without melting the soil. The rear of the rooftop will rise as a triangle, turning upward with the mountain behind it.

Sitting in ice
Thomas Leeser, principal and founder of Leeser Architecture, says that the structure is elevated because he wanted it to have as little contact with the ground as possible to prevent heat transfer. “The building is basically sitting in ice,” Leeser explains. “Even though the ground never thaws, when you build on it, heat is introduced into the ground, and it can partially thaw so, after the building settles, it could break apart. Most of the year there will be about eight feet of snow at the site. The supports are the only building element to touch the ground, so there will be very little heat transfer from the outside down into ground. In addition, we will have a sensor-controlled system to cool the foundation. By lifting the building 20 feet, we also use the underside to protect the structure from the harsh climate.”

The cone-like stilts distribute the structural load of the building and fan up toward the roof. The roof surface has various angles, and on it sit inversed, rising cones equipped with light monitors and meant to break through snow to bring light into the building. Leeser decided to make the double façade translucent to bring more light into the building, fillling it with a semi-translucent insulating material known as Aerogel. “It’s a sponge-like, cellular structure made from silicon that traps air, but at the same time allows light to go through it. Every bit of light we can capture will minimize consumption of energy. The windows will be made from heat-traced glass with sensor-driven rotary discs that can redirect light to the roof cones to get more light inside. We are also looking into the possibility of batteries powered by wind turbines so the building can be completely off the electric grid.”

Float upward among the gardens; ride down below to visit the woolly mammoth
Inside, steel trusses and two vertical concrete super columns support three interior levels, linked by a diagonal escalator in a tube that floats upward. The escalator rises past the mechanical and laboratories levels to the top museum level, which features walkways. Two giant interior gardens sit against the two sides of the glass façade, which slopes downward from the roof. The gardens are visible throughout the museum. “The term ‘museum’ is a misnomer,” Leeser points out. “Half of it is a science center where scientists will study DNA, cloning, carbon dating, and things they find in the permafrost.”

“The building floats,” describes Leeser. “You enter going up an air lock onto an open, elevated metal grid, and proceed onto a suspended, climate-controlled escalator. As you go up, you pass, or ‘float,’ through the lab level, where there is an outer ring of labs. Visitors will be able to see the scientists but will not be able to get off there because the work they do is sensitive to contamination. Visitors then vertically pass the inner core, which is the storage, and above that level is the large, open museum level. On the museum level there will be conference rooms, a media room, and a café that projects out onto east and west gardens that slope up into the garden. The outer edge is the exhibition part of the museum, and the columns project thru that space.”

Both scientists and museum visitors can enter the gardens, he says. “That would be the only point of contact, though, where visitors can meet the scientists.” Leeser says that the idea for adding these two large gardens came partially from the complex‘s Siberian location. “We thought it would create a good physiological environment. Plus, the gardens contribute to the climate inside the building because there will be mosses and indigenous plants that filter the air, trap dust particles, and regulate and stabilize humidity.”

From the first level, another escalator will allow visitors to descend inside the base of the mountain into the permafrost gallery. “The escalator goes down to a series of ice caves that house the most complete mammoth ever found,” enthuses Leeser. “The mammoth will remain in the caves, so the museum is the portal to the caves. The access to the cave will be highly restrictive because only a few people at any given time are allowed into it. Too much heat would deteriorate the mammoth and melt the ice.”