The Florida Museum of Natural History is increasing this month with the opening of a state-of-the-artwork special collections building on the University of Florida campus.
The museum has functioned as Florida’s official repository of the state’s biodiversity and cultural heritage for greater than 100 years. From mammoth bones and freshwater mollusks, to historic pottery and uncommon endemic crops, the Florida Museum has grown from a small assortment of fossils and minerals at its institution within the late nineteenth century to the greater than 40 million specimens and cultural artifacts it holds immediately.
The new building will home the museum’s burgeoning “wet” collections, together with all specimens preserved in ethyl or isopropyl alcohol.
“The Florida Museum’s world-class collection of fishes, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates is critically important to the study of global biodiversity,” mentioned Florida Museum director Douglas Jones. “The newly constructed Special Collections Building provides a modern, accessible and safe environment for these collections to grow and support biodiversity research as well as undergraduate and graduate student training in the 21st century.”
The building was designed and constructed by The Haskell Co., an architectural, engineering and building agency based mostly out of Jacksonville, Florida, and marks the primary time the corporate has collaborated with UF. The challenge price roughly $13 million and took slightly below two years to finish.
The two-story floorplan gives 23,000 sq. ft of cell, compact excessive-density shelving techniques, analysis laboratories and workplace area, offering ample room for the continued growth of the moist collections. The vacated area the place they’re presently saved in Dickinson Hall will moreover enable for the continued acquisition and examine of different organic, paleontological and archaeological specimens and artifacts.
Read more on the Florida Museum of Natural History’s news website.
October 20, 2022
