Facility Study

Facility Study

The Building

The Arctic is characterized by vast expanses of sea ice, formidable glaciers, rugged mountain ranges, and rolling tundra. During the fall and winter months twilight dominates the area, while during the long spring and summer days the pastel landscape is infused with a clarity of light or shrouded in fog. Human beings have called the Arctic home for thousands of years. They have acquired an intimate knowledge of the landscapes and seascapes on which they depend, and developed ingenious technologies, strategies, and ideologies that have enabled them to live and thrive in this challenging and dynamic environment.

Throughout the Arctic, settlements tend to be small, and complex webs of social relations link individuals to one another. These webs are safety nets that envelope men, women, and children in communities characterized by mutual aid and support.

The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center should reflect the human dimension of life in the North. Visitors should be intrigued by and drawn to the building, and should be comfortable approaching it. They should step into a welcoming space where they are at ease, even though they are being introduced to cultures and environments that will seem exotic to most of them. Undergraduates, families, tourists, unaccompanied children, and school groups should feel this is a place they can freely explore. The building, its furnishings, and exhibitions should convey both the spaciousness of Arctic environments and the intimacy of settlement life.

Some of the non-public spaces should be the domain of undergraduates doing course work, working with museum and archaeological collections, or studying in a pleasant and interesting place. They should be working near if not alongside faculty, staff, and other students who are studying and interpreting the environmental and cultural history of the North.

Non-public areas also should provide spaces where staff, working alone or in groups, can focus intensively on their work. Exhibitions, projects, and publications are developed when staff gets together to brainstorm. The space should be designed to afford staff privacy from but accessibility to one another, promoting the creative development of ideas.