Jean and Ric Edelman Fossil Park and Museum of Rowan University

Lead & Project Designer I Ennead Architects I 2019 – 2022 (under construction)

The museum is situated within an active dinosaur fossil dig site in Southern New Jersey which contains thousands of fossils and provides a view into life in the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago. Once a shallow ocean environment, then used for mining for over a century, the site is now a 4-acre quarry, encompassed by a 65-acre property, where “citizen scientists” can dig for fossils, alongside leading paleontologists at Rowan University.
The design concept for this remarkable site was envisioned as a set of metaphorical camera obscuras, where a tiny portal offers a realm beyond. The site itself, the experience, and the architecture, are all envisioned as a series of lenses. The deep time perspective that the fossil record offers inspired an architecture that nestles within the natural landscape as a series of small-scale pavilions which frame the evidence of past worlds, while encouraging engagement with the present moment.

Team

Ennead Design Team:

Tom Wong, Don Weinreich, Marissa Sweig Trigger, Julia Chapman, Ursula Trost, Kailey Baker, Luccas Dias, Darla Elsbernd, Bettine Gachstetter, Masha Konopleva, Eliza Montgomery, Stine Pedersen

Architect of Record: KSS Architects

Experience Design: Gallagher & Associates

Landscape Architect: SEED Design/Yaki Miodovnik

Engineer & Sustainability: BuroHappold Engineering