Kate Orff and the SCAPE team believe landscape architecture can enable positive change in communities by regenerating living infrastructure and public landscapes.” Erik Kasper and his team impressed us with their design ethos, knowledge of Jacksonville processes and their deep community-service efforts. “We are honored to be part of this groundbreaking project and are fortunate to be partners with both kasper architects and SCAPE.

“MOSH will have a dramatic impact on the Jacksonville region, telling its unique story of human and natural history and culture, innovation and current science,” said DLR Group Senior Principal Paul Westlake, who leads the firm’s Cultural + Performing Arts practice. Museum projects led by the Omaha-founded DLR Group include, among others, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, New York’s Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, the Chandler History Museum in Arizona, the lauded renovation of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., and a handful of Cleveland-based projects including renovations at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, and the now-underway expansion of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “Together, we know DLR Group, kasper architects + associates, and SCAPE will bring our vision to life.” “We knew this project required the expertise of both a national firm with deep experience in museum architecture, and a local partner with existing relationships and knowledge of the Jacksonville market,” said MOSH president and CEO Bruce Fafard. Of the ten competing firms that completed the RPF process, three emerged as finalists: DLR Group, SmithGroup, and Grimshaw Architects. The MOSH Genesis project team was selected as part of a competitive, eight-month-long process spearheaded by the MOSH Board of Trustees and the Genesis Oversight Committee. (PicoOrdinalo/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0) MOSH’s current home, completed in 1969 in the Southbank district of Jacksonville. Early projections have estimated that MOSH will be able to serve 58,000 students (double the pre-pandemic number) and 469,000 visitors (a 168 percent increase) annually by moving into more spacious digs across the river. Per a press release, the $85 million relocation scheme will enable MOSH to “meet the growing demand for exhibits and programs that inspire innovation” with dedicated spaces for exhibitions, events, educational programming, and, of course, a new Bryan-Gooding Planetarium. (A previously announced $80 million plan to further expand and renovate MOSH’s Southbank campus was ultimately scrapped, and the relocation scheme was first announced in October 2020.) Johns River at the downtown Jacksonville Shipyards.

Despite the major late 1980s expansion and subsequent renovations, MOSH has steadily outgrown its 77,000-square-foot home, necessitating an entirely new museum building across the St. In 1988, the nonprofit institution was bestowed with its current name following a significant expansion and renovation project that included the addition of the Bryan-Gooding Planetarium (formerly the Alexander Brest Planetarium). MOSH was first chartered as the Jacksonville Children’s Museum in 1941, becoming the Jacksonville Museum of Arts & Sciences in 1977. The most popular museum in Florida’s most populous city, MOSH has been situated at its beloved but aging Southbank home since the late 1960s. Along with the design team announcement, MOSH also revealed three new conceptual interior renderings of the new museum, although they are for illustrative purposes only and do not represent the finalized design.

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