A Mo-clay Museum on Mors

Abstract

This thesis presents an investigation into how a new Moclay and Fossil Museum on Mors could be designed. The museum is to replace an existing one and needs to exhibit both ancient fossils and the unique landscape of the moclay excavation that it will sit in. Both the placement and design of the museum follows an extensive analysis of the site, its surroundings and the existing museum conditions. The steep slopes of the excavations that cut into the typical rolling hills of the landscape and the curving lines of the revealed mo-clay layers are unique and important parts of the history of the landscape. These influence the design of the museum heavily as it makes the bottom of the excavation accessible and comes to contrast the landscape by using well-defined geometric shapes with facades of materials of the ground - brick and concrete. A long, horizontal building housing most of the museum functions steps forward onto the edge of the excavation, becoming part of the landscape. The interior of the building is divided into a 7x7m grid, defined by a partition walls, some of them moclay bricks – and a system of timber columns and beams that carry roof and a second floor. The parametric software Karamba has been used in the design of this system, testing multiple layouts. From this main building, visitors can take two directions: one leads into a subterranean space, designed to showcase a 10-meter-tall, petrified tree found in the ground. Another path leads to a tower, where visitors can take an elevator that will slowly move them down through the geological layers, framing views of it along the way. The design is an attempt to balance between stepping into the background and letting landscape and fossils speak – by using simple, untreated materials and by refraining from imitations of the curved lines of the landscape – and of not being afraid to step forward, providing a constant and timeless feature in a landscape that is both eternal and everchanging.

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A master thesis from Aalborg University

A Mo-clay Museum on Mors