Project
Skansen Baltic Sea Science Center
The Baltic Sea Science Center is the result of a collaboration between the Baltic Sea 2020 foundation and the open-air museum, Skansen. The science centre will be both an educational hub for schools and an absorbing source of information to the general public where issues relating to the Baltic Sea are concerned. Construction work began in November 2016 and the centre has now been opened to the public.
September 1, 2021
- COUNTRIES: Sweden
- CLIENT: Baltic Sea Science Center
- DURATION: 2015-2017
Component elements of the new building include three large aquariums, an exhibition space, an educational unit and laboratory for school students and a cinema. The point of departure upon which the new construction builds is the concrete structure that formerly housed Skansen’s sea lions, penguins and flamingos.
This has been transformed into the lower floor of the new science centre and accommodates the various aquariums. The glazed floor immediately above is surmounted in turn by two wooden structures. It is a beautifully crafted building, geometrically interesting in its fine proportions, and exudes Scandinavian style in its use of raw concrete, glass and untreated wood.
The assignment
Indoor aquariums and other technology-intensive features make this a technologically demanding building. With such a rich programme content to be established on the small plot of land, every square meter had to be utilised to the full. Owing to these conditions, 3D project planning was vital for communicating the building within the project-planning group as well as with the client and contractor, especially in relation to coordination and installation.
In the BIM model, coordination could be performed by means of making a virtual tour of the building, this providing the opportunity of working with the installations from a design perspective. The detailed BIM model also facilitated the production of interesting views and sections for visualisation.
"We have designed the facility so there are different ways of experiencing it. As the plot is located on a slope, we designed the building as a three-dimensional puzzle that connects to its surroundings in different ways. The different levels build upon the structure of the previous facility, incorporating a number of terraces and creating five different levels, one of which is underground. "
Katarina Wahlström, chief architect for the Baltic Sea Science Center, who, through KAWA architecture, chose to collaborate with NIRAS Architects for project planning, BIM modelling and visualisation.
