Children’s Museum Looks Like a ‘Big Fun Cool Thing’

The mandate given to New York-based designer Edwin Schlossberg was simple but daunting.

Schlossberg, 56, is designing the exhibits for the new branch of the Los Angeles Children’s Museum to be built in the Hansen Dam Recreation Area in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

“One of the things we asked Edwin to do was to invent a new kind of museum--an environment where children can play and learn and build their communities,” museum director Candace Barrett said.

Schlossberg showed Barrett and three others involved in the project a detailed proposal for the exhibits last week, refining the preliminary proposal made public in June.

“It’s truly like nothing I’ve ever seen, and we’re all thrilled,” Barrett said of the plan.

A formal plan will be submitted to museum decision-makers this month, and approval is expected around Jan. 9, Barrett said.

About $13 million has been budgeted for exhibits for the museum, which will be housed in a $20-million, energy-efficient structure, said Bill Holland, former city architect for Los Angeles and chairman of the museum’s building committee.

Schlossberg has designed exhibits for dozens of cultural institutions, including the Immigration History Center at Ellis Island. For the Hansen Dam museum, he has proposed a series of hands-on, nature-oriented exhibits.

The museum will sit on a one-acre site within the recreation area, just east of Osborne Street and Foothill Boulevard in Lake View Terrace. About 34,000 square feet will be devoted to exhibits, Barrett said. Ground will be broken in June or July, and the museum should open about 18 months later, she said.

Barrett said visitors will enter through an interactive Zoom Zone. “It’s mostly about interactive music,” she said. “There are instruments that children can climb and that they can work with their hands and their feet. There are instruments they can roll on.”

Themes Are Earth, Air, Fire and Water

There will be four main exhibit areas: the Shop, the Kitchen, the Observatory and the Arts Studio. Organized around the themes of earth, air, fire and water, the exhibits will function as “giant tool boxes” for visitors, she said.

Perhaps the most innovative feature of the proposed museum is something Schlossberg calls the Big Fun Cool Thing.

“It’s going to be a large element that will go through the entire building that’s mostly about sharing children’s work,” Barrett said of the Big Fun Cool Thing. “Some of it moves. Not all of it.”

Schlossberg has said that one function of the Big Fun Cool Thing would be to carry visitors’ artwork through the building on something like the moving rack at a dry cleaner’s.

It also will feature “nodes,” where visitors can stop and do activities or interact with exhibits, Barrett said.

Schlossberg has created two characters for the museum, Dogbear and Tree, structures that will be packed with electronics to make them interactive. They will teach visitors about living systems, Barrett said.

“Children can get into them and look out,” Barrett said. Visitors also will be able to make food for the characters in the Kitchen (visitors will be responsible for keeping Dogbear and Tree “healthy”).

The senses will be another major theme of the museum, Barrett said.

“There’s a wonderful part of the Observatory where kids will actually be able to see their voices” by watching how the sound waves they generate move through water, Barrett said.

‘Rain Room’ Keeps the Building Cool

The building, designed by Los Angeles architect Sarah Graham, won’t have traditional air-conditioning but will use an underground tube system to moderate interior temperatures. Photovoltaic panels will capture sunlight to generate electricity.

“The museum will have a wonderful Rain Room where it will rain when it gets too hot, then the wind will go through that space and cool off the museum,” Barrett said.

The room is essentially a greenhouse with sprinklers activated whenever the interior temperature reaches 80 degrees.

“This is probably going to be the most sustainable building in Los Angeles, and it will probably set the tone for future buildings,” Holland said.