Case Study

Hall of Biodiversity, American Museum of Natural History 

                                   Ralph Applebaum Associates

The hall of biodiversity, the American Museum of Natural History’s first “Issues Hall”, was created to draw attention to the beauty and diversity of life on Earth and the crucial roles biodiversity plays in sustaining that life. It alerts the public to the ecological crisis we face and the part humans are playing in the Sixth Mass Extinction—the current massive loss of biodiversity. The hall’s purpose is to convey its one key message: the need to protect and preserve our planet’s biodiversity is the most pressing environmental issue of our time.

The hall contains a series of displays including a 2,500-square-foot walk-through diorama that depicts part of the Dzanga-Sangha rain forest, one of Earth’s most diverse ecosystems. The hall’s Spectrum of Life exhibit showcases the diversity of life resulting from 3.5 billion years of evolution. Over 1,500 specimens and models, from microorganisms to terrestrial and aquatic giants, are organized into 28 groups along the 100-foot-long installation. A timeline of the five previous mass extinctions includes examples of species lost, and a nearby display case features examples of extinct and threatened species, including the long-extinct Dodo bird and the threatened Siberian tiger.

The Hall is organised around four key questions: 

- What is biodiversity?

- Why is it important? 

- What are the threats to it? 

- What is being done and what can I do?  

As visitors are introduced to the twenty-eight major groups of life they are educated on the benefits and services we derive from them.

The hall utilizes many new technologies to create an immersive interactive environment. For instance, a regularly updated BioBulletin video features the latest in biodiversity research. Ecological biodiversity is explored at the Habitat Wall, a 60-foot-long, multi-screen video instillation, which tours the Earth’s nine major ecosystems and highlights the threats to each of them.

The 2,000-square-foot Dzanga-Sangha Rainforest is an immersive diorama that replicates a Central African rainforest, showing a hundred and sixty species of plants, animals, and insects. Within this diorama, digital imaging and environmental effects are combined with traditional techniques to create an advanced, vivid new kind of diorama. The diorama uses video and sound to re-create the ecosystem at dawn, at an elephant clearing, and degraded by human intervention along a road.

Located in central New York the Museum’s urban location is easily accessible to the public for a reasonable entrance fee. This exhibition targets a broad audience of all ages. School age children are particularly considered, with an active education program thought the museum and online educator guides for teachers.