Studio project for "Museum of Energy," taught by Wes Jones, 2009

A proposed Museum of Energy in Exposition Park, Los Angeles.  Nestled between the massive Coliseum and the grand Museum of Natural History,

Exposition Park is slowly becoming a park in name only.  Gradually stripped of its openness and greenery, Los Angeles is gradually stripped of its freedom to roam, wander and explore. 
As museum after museum is plopped down boxlike on this site, the indoor educational value expands as the outdoor disappears.  The Museum of Energy seeks to preserve some sense of the one thing that provides us with the source of all energy, the environment.
Providing an outdoor playplace as well as an indoor exhibition space that is both reverent to the energy-giving sun and protective from its heating wrath in the bright Southern California climate.  In this way, visitors are drawn to and around the site, reminded of the sun's power and educated about its ability to enrich our lives.
The museum of Energy is both efficiently cooled with protective southern walls and green roofs and green shading walls, and pays homage to the sun with courtyards, inhabitable outdoor spaces and shaded northern glazed walls to view the light and the outdoors.