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| Public Market from the air, courtesy TMG Partners |
San Francisco, CA, USA (June 12, 2012) /BUSINESS WIRE/ –As part of its leadership in developing vibrant, environmentally sustainable urban communities, TMG Partners and their partner Rockwood Capital, in conjunction with the City of Emeryville, is partnering with the global leader in informal learning the Exploratorium to create a permanent exhibition of outdoor interactive science displays onsite at the Public Market Emeryville. This permanent exhibition presents a singular opportunity for Emeryville and the greater East Bay public to experience dynamic exhibits from the Exploratorium within their community. The exhibition, set to be unveiled in November, will be a key feature of Public Market’s forthcoming Green Living Room, a demonstration project of exemplary green building, recycling and environmental management with assistance and inspiration from the State of California’s Catalyst Pilot Communities program. The Public Market was a California Catalyst Gold Level Pilot Designee whereby the City and landowner participate with the State in creating and documenting best practices in green infill development.
The exhibition will not only engage people directly where they gather, but also will reflect its specific environment, telling a local and regional story on phenomena as varied as wind patterns, visual perception and bay sediment. The Exploratorium’s Silva Raker explained, “With these displays in Emeryville, we hope to create a taste of the Exploratorium in the East Bay where – in the blink of an eye – visitors look around their environment, notice what’s happening, and see their world a little differently.”
“We are honored to welcome the Exploratorium’s engaging and playful displays to Emeryville so that residents and visitors alike can enjoy a deeper understanding of our city’s thriving, green bay-front community,” said Emeryville Mayor Jennifer West.
“By demonstrating sustainable best practices including solar car-ports that fuel electric-vehicle charging stations, construction waste recycling, car-sharing, and storm water management, TMG/Rockwood’s entire Public Market Green Living Room will be a project to sustain and inspire others throughout the State for decades to come,” said California State Assembly Member Nancy Skinner who represents the 14th Assembly District including Emeryville.
The Exploratorium displays will be installed in the outdoor walkways and plazas of TMG/Rockwood’s Public Market Emeryville. Home to just-opened Urban Outfitters, Guitar Center and HOT ITALIAN, a 10-screen UA/Regal Movie Theater, more than 20 ethnic restaurants as well as offices, the Public Market is a well-established working and gathering place that reflects the diversity of the Bay Area.
“TMG is thrilled to partner with the Exploratorium to provide a fun and eye-opening experience of what it means to interact with the natural and the built environments,” noted Michael Covarrubias, Chairman and CEO of TMG. “The Exploratorium is the best scientific ‘explainer’ in the business, and we are honored to partner with them.”
When the Exploratorium relocates to its new waterfront home on San Francisco’s Pier 15 in Spring 2013, it will feature over 1.5 acres of outdoor exhibits for the first time. The partnership with Public Market Emeryville is an extension of the Exploratorium’s educational mission, bringing its participatory learning directly to local communities.
Interactive displays to be designed by the Exploratorium for the Public Market Green Living Room:
- Lift: Drawing on the aerodynamics of bird flight and the rigging technology used in sailboat design, Lift is comprised of sets of wing-like airfoils that move up and down vertical cables. The airfoils on the cables rise and fall according to wind speed. The result is a kind of “aerograph,” a device that graphs how the speed of the wind changes across a horizontal distance.
- Anamorphic Bench: A playful exhibit that incorporates concepts of light, geometry, and human perception of both. A specially designed, semi-circular bench is reflected in a cylindrical mirror. In the reflection, this interestingly designed bench amazingly appears to be perfectly rectangular. This radial distortion also creates a seating arrangement that reorients the viewer towards other seated viewers, encouraging conversation, noticing, and sharing of ideas.
- Outdoor Signposts: A series of five outdoor signposts installed to encourage visitors to observe recycled materials, architectural elements, wear patterns and any number of man-made or naturally-occurring artifacts or phenomenon at the Public Market location.
- Bay Windows: Visitors spin disks filled with samples of bay mud, sand and sediment. The glowing color or quick settling of materials will be both beautiful and telling as visitors explore the movement and settling characteristics of bay sediment. Three Bay Windows will be installed, each with a different sediment mixture. The materials in each will be visually distinguished and together form a triptych of ocean sediments and tell an important local and regional story.
Public Market is part of a 14-acre mixed-use site under multi-year development that includes nearly 1,000,000 square feet of new housing and mixed-use infill transit oriented development. TMG/Rockwood’s Public Market was awarded in 2008 the first-ever Platinum designation from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) rating system, and it aims to be a model of walkable, green urban living.
For more information on Public Market Emeryville, visit publicmarketemeryville.com
For more information on TMG Partners, visit www.tmgpartners.com
For more information on Rockwood Capital, visit www.rockwoodcap.com
For more information on the Exploratorium, visit http://www.exploratorium.edu/