Burke Museum
The Burke is a 110,000 sq ft, radically transparent museum where the public is invited to participate in their ongoing vision to foster connections with all life. The Burke redefines the traditional model of a natural history museum where visible working labs and collections are seamlessly integrated with public experiential spaces. Gone are the lines between galleries and the work of scientists, curators, and collections managers who care for and expand the museum’s 16 million objects.
Andrew Waits
Articulated platforms with minimal barriers encourage intimate encounters with Mesozoic fossils, interpretive graphics, and hands-on interactives.
Matt Fortier
The value of collecting is on display as hundreds of specimens compose an evolutionary “tree of life.” Biological research is revealed through floor-to-ceiling windows.
The Challenge
Building a larger, modern facility provided a fresh opportunity for the Burke to leverage its collections to illuminate core science concepts, share research, and demonstrate the importance of collecting.
The Burke was committed to connecting its objects to local communities and establishing trust by creating a welcoming place for learning and appreciation of cultures and the environment. The design team was challenged to disrupt the traditional museum model to embody the ethos of the new Burke; redefine relationships between exhibit galleries, labs, and collection spaces; and create a unified, flexible, object-intensive exhibition program with diverse content.
Shari Berman, Evidence Design
Multifunctional alcoves feature windows into labs and collections, adjustable furniture, and magnetic murals for flexible programming.
Matt Fortier
A food web of marine, forest, and plateau organisms highlights the interdependence of all life. The 12-foot sculpture reaches up to the cultural exhibits visible through an opening in the ceiling.
Matt Fortier
A cedar tree floats above a simulated Indigenous excavation site to examine the sensitive legal, cultural, and practical complexities of archaeology.
Project Vision
The Burke’s commitment to an "inside-out" institutional model led our team to transcend museum norms at every step, including architectural programming and exhibition design.
By blurring the lines between front and back-of-house, labs, collections, and exhibition spaces take on characteristics of each other; in the galleries, a minimalist design approach and meticulously detailed exhibit infrastructure elevate sculptural, object-rich displays. These exhibits viscerally link scientific discoveries and cultural connections to the adjacent collections and labs nearby and emphasize the importance of these collections to sustain cultural traditions, enable groundbreaking scientific research, and advance conversations that matter to everyone.
Andrew Waits
Guests contribute to a weaving installation in the Culture is Living gallery, which illuminates the artistry and technology of Indigenous and immigrant communities.
Aaron Leitz
Local Indigenous artists curated the inaugural exhibition in the Northwest Native Art gallery. Flexible casework supports commissioned pieces displayed next to the Burke collections that inspired them.
Design & Execution
Early interpretive planning informed the integration of architecture and exhibitions as well as a holistic guest experience.
During building schematics, Evidence Design programmed intersecting public and working spaces, which was then implemented by the architecture team so that visitors may interact with experts, stories, collections, and each other. Meticulously detailed exhibit infrastructure elevates object-driven sculptural displays and interactives that viscerally link scientific concepts and cultural connections to the adjacent work spaces.
Matt Fortier
Labs and collections of Burke paleontologists are in full view of the Fossils Uncovered gallery. Fossil-covered walls evidence concepts like climate change.
Andrew Waits
Articulated platforms with minimal barriers encourage intimate encounters with Mesozoic fossils, interpretive graphics, and hands-on interactives.
Matt Fortier
The value of collecting is on display as hundreds of specimens compose an evolutionary “tree of life.” Biological research is revealed through floor-to-ceiling windows.
Shari Berman, Evidence Design
Multifunctional alcoves feature windows into labs and collections, adjustable furniture, and magnetic murals for flexible programming.
Matt Fortier
A food web of marine, forest, and plateau organisms highlights the interdependence of all life. The 12-foot sculpture reaches up to the cultural exhibits visible through an opening in the ceiling.
Matt Fortier
A cedar tree floats above a simulated Indigenous excavation site to examine the sensitive legal, cultural, and practical complexities of archaeology.
Andrew Waits
Guests contribute to a weaving installation in the Culture is Living gallery, which illuminates the artistry and technology of Indigenous and immigrant communities.
Aaron Leitz
Local Indigenous artists curated the inaugural exhibition in the Northwest Native Art gallery. Flexible casework supports commissioned pieces displayed next to the Burke collections that inspired them.