Related Projects
The museum’s graphic identity is expressed with a sculptural cairn whose elements align into a composition upon approach.
Area
18,000sf
In the Media
Connecting the Old and the New, Museum Design Magazine
Children’s Discovery
Museum of the Desert
Conceived in 1986, the Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert was founded to provide educational and cultural programming to children and families in the Coachella Valley, 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Originally located in a rented house, the success of the program led to the need for a new and larger facility. MGA Partners was charged with the task of designing a place which is engaging and inspiring to children and families, and a museum which would become a community center and premier cultural attraction for the desert towns.
Rancho Mirage, California
An important goal for the Museum was to respond to the unique environment of the desert: the sands, with the subtle qualities of distant vistas and clear sense of horizon; the sun, which dominates the landscape with an intense quality of heat and shadow and light; and the Santa Rosa Mountains, which provide enclosure and community in the desert.
Responding to a warm dry climate, the building is planned around an outdoor courtyard. The arrangement of the museum complex encourages activity between inside and outside.
The view of the Santa Rosa mountains on the horizon focuses the visitor’s attention on the beauty and breadth of their larger world.
With each donor gift, a donor photo is added in gray tones, forming the “pixels” of a child’s eyes looking with wonder at the mountains beyond.