Client: Ashes and Snow, LLC

The Nomadic Museum is a traveling museum that houses Gregory Colbert’s Ashes and Snow exhibit. The museum is continuously disassembled and reassembled as it travels around the globe. The 56,000-foot structure is primarily composed of recyclable and environmentally sustainable materials: leased shipping containers, recycled paper-tube columns, local wood plank flooring and indigenous rocks. Once inside, visitors are taken on a journey around the globe as they view Colbert’s artwork depicting a diverse array of animal species and indigenous peoples in their habitats. Complementing this experience is the environmentally progressive journey through the ethereal space and its prepurposed materials. Many technical challenges associated with its transitory nature were overcome, including meeting seismic and structural specifications for a 55-foot-tall building with no permanent (i.e., welded) connections.

“The concept for this building structure is fantastic. Kudos to the design team for using locally available shipping containers to construct such a large temporary structure, and for pulling this off in multiple locations.”
–Aura Oslapas, IDSA, principal, A+O Design Methods

Contact: Irwin Miller
Gensler
(310) 449-5775
[email protected]

Credit:Gensler, Shigeru Ban Architects (France) and Officina Di Architettura (Italy)