Problem-Solving Collaboration: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Design team leaders from the National Museum of African American History and Culture will apply project takeaways applicable to the specific interests and needs of the AIA audience. These applicable lessons include:

• Achieving the client’s vision of creating column-free space with no structural steel above grade by developing solutions including use of structural cores, cantilevered girders, and hung vertical trusses
• Providing architectural, civil, structural, and environmental solutions for responsible management of the water table and the multiple methods explored to integrate the water table into a design where 60% of the structure - 5 levels - is built below ground within the DC tidal basin.
• Managing multi-stakeholder input from the Smithsonian, federal and DC agencies, design review stakeholders, and public boards and citizen stakeholders in the District
• Designing the most sustainable national museum ever built