Located in Dallas, Texas, the monolithic Perot Museum of Nature and Science was inspired by the local landscape and designed to spark the imagination.
The original museum dates back to 1936. Its current form represents the merger of the Dallas Museum of Natural History, The Science Place, and the Dallas Children’s Museum.
The new building, designed by architecture firm Morphosis, was completed in 2012. One goal of the new construction was to minimize its impact on the environment.
It achieves this by features such as meeting its irrigation and plumbing needs by recapturing air conditioning condensation, utilizing a cube shape for greater energy efficiency than a rectangular building, using reusable and biodegradable materials in its cafe, using less artificial light through the use of light wells, drip irrigation, and solar panels to heat the water. All of these features and more qualify it as LEED certified, meaning it meets the criteria for best in class strategies and practices across the globe.
Visitors approach the Perot Museum through native foliage, representing East Texas and a terrace with desert xeriscaping, representing West Texas.
The textured “skin” on the outside is made up of 656 concrete panels which fade away toward the top to make it feel like the building is melting into the sky.
Inside visitors can marvel at interactive exhibits crafted to spur new thinking and inspiration.
