Lawrence Hall of Science
Berkeley, CA
Opened Summer 2003

Dramatic panoramic views and natural beauty are the hallmarks of Lawrence Hall of Science’s new exhibition/landscape experience interpreting regional geology. Set 1,100 feet above San Francisco Bay on the campus of UC Berkeley, the exhibition focuses visitors’ attention on what lays directly before them – a landscape shaped and changed by forces still at work today.

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JKA worked in close collaboration with landscape designer Ken Kay and the staff of Lawrence Hall of Science to develop and design an exhibition that would allow visitors to participate in full body and hands-on activities that show how the Bay was formed and to contemplate the result of millions of years of change wrought by geologic, climatic, marine, and human forces. Four exhibit clusters are connected by paved pathways and visually integrated by elements emerging from and connecting directly to the landscape. Very large scale artificial stone forms, carved to represent locally quarried rock, echo and reinforce many of the exhibition’s central themes. A canopy of mist drifts down boulders to provide the setting for water-related components.

Highlights of the exhibition include a 40-foot-long, 6-foot-high, rock compression wall for exploration of how the earth’s many layers twist and fold, and an earthquake fault simulation that brings plate tectonics vividly to life.