Design ideas released for proposed Minot children's museum
MINOT, N.D. (AP) — An imitation B-52 bomber and an oil derrick will be showcased in the proposed Magic City Discovery Center in Minot, according to recently unveiled concept plans.
Mark Lyman, board president of the children's museum, said the project has raised nearly two-thirds of the $7 million needed for the three-story, 22,000-square-foot (around 2,000-square meter) facility, the Minot Daily News reported.
Lyman added that groundbreaking will happen on a hill just south of the Minot airport once the project has raised 75 to 80% of the intended funding target.
Engineering and Architectural consulting firm Ackerman-Estvold, steered by project architect Paul Breiner, is handling the building design. Chicago-area's MindSplash and POW! from Long Island, New York, are in charge of designing the museum's exhibits.
Paul Orselli, chief instigator with POW!, detailed a 35-foot (roughly 10-meter) climbing structure with a B-52 at the top that will be viewed through the multi-story glassed-in atrium.
"This will be literally the centerpiece conceptually and physically of the new Magic City Discovery Center," he said. "It is framed along themes that are reflective of Minot. So you start at the bottom with things related to the ground and the underground. You move up onto structures that are built on the earth — things like trestles or oil derricks."
There will be three floors in the new building, each with different exhibit galleries, Orselli added.
Becky Lindsay, MindSplash creative director, noted potential features of the central floor's Spark!Lab, Math and Patterns, Air Forces and Playscapes exhibits. Potential choices are a tennis ball launcher, homemade bottle rockets, paper airplane launch, a flight tunnel for testing, origami and a Mr. Potato Head house that...