NFPA Journal - September/October 2019 - 50

Challenge:
Coordinating "museums
within a museum"

W

'MULTIDIMENSIONAL VISITOR EXPERIENCE'
Safety features had to be incorporated discreetly
into a dense array of museum spaces and exhibits,
including immersive exhibits like the re-creation of
Nazareth Village, pictured above. Above right, the
History of the Bible exhibit on the fourth floor includes
many of the museum's biblical artifacts. A variety of
ceiling treatments were used throughout the floor,
including stretched fabric, pictured here, to create a
vaulted effect. But the material posed a challenge for
fire protection coverage, and the exhibit fabricator
worked with the fabric supplier to find a material that
could be penetrated by the concealed sprinkler
assembly and still remain taut. The sprinklers are a
custom color to match the fabric.

50 | NFPA JOURNAL * S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 9

HEREAS TRADITIONAL museums
typically consist of exhibition galleries,
spaces for lectures and educational
activities, a shop, and perhaps a café, the
Museum of the Bible was conceived and
designed as a more ambitious and flexible institution, one
intended to deliver a multidimensional visitor experience.
This vision also created significant design and safety challenges for designers.
Long-term, permanent exhibitions occupy the majority
of floor space within the original structure, and the project
includes a variety of additional gallery spaces accommodating displays from visiting institutions, such as the Vatican
Library and the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Each of these
unique spaces had its own specialized exhibit design team,
which in turn had its own methods of creating drawings,
communicating to fabricators, and coordinating with the
base building engineering teams. This approach effectively
created a building of "museums within a museum," as well
as the need to standardize many of the building's main systems-such as lighting controls, dimming panels, life safety
devices, and communication pathways-without stifling the
design of the spaces.
Due to the compressed schedule, necessary project phasing,
and the large number of design professionals involved-
more than 550 engineers, architects, and other construction
experts-a traditional design-bid-build project approach
would not have allowed the museum to be completed in the
client's desired timeframe. The general contractor, Clark Construction, was brought on to the project at the beginning, and
constant collaboration between the design and construction
teams helped maintain a tight schedule. Together with the
general contractor, six exhibit design teams, and more than 60
specialty trade partners, the project team took an integrated
approach early in the process, with specialty design-assist
partners embedded with the design team-HVAC, plumbing,
fire protection, electrical, and curtainwall fabricators, to name
a few. This included weekly design coordination meetings
with participation from all six exhibit design teams and the
contractor, as well as quarterly project meetings where design
progress was shared.
Because of the desired unique nature of each of the
"museums," the design teams needed to go beyond the standardization of the larger systems and find solutions for items
that could not be standardized. These included features such
as custom-colored, concealed sprinklers in a re-creation of
Nazareth Village; the precise placement of fire protection
NFPA Journal - September/October 2019

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