St. Louis Science Center Deflates Exploradome
ST. LOUIS — On June 24, St. Louis-based McGrath & Associates finally pulled the plug on the St. Louis Science Center’s air-filled Exploradome, which was originally built as a temporary exhibition space 16 years ago.
The dome was built in the location of the former Merchant’s Exchange building on top of a 120-by-240-foot rectangular concrete pad as a low-cost solution to the science center’s need for more space. It housed internal classrooms, restrooms and a 12,000-square-foot exhibition hall, which hosted 33 special exhibitions that attracted more than 2.4 million visitors throughout the years.
The dome was since replaced with Boeing Hall in 2011. The dome cost about $200,000 a year in heating, cooling and inflation and ran fans 24 hours a day, which caused financial reasons for deflating the dome, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The Exploradome’s polyvinyl fluoride (PVF) shell stretched about 38,000 square feet, and by the end of August, the structure and its concrete base, will be completely gone. This will leave an empty field to be transformed into the largest exhibit expansion in the history of the science center, offering both indoor and outdoor experiences. The new space will focus on agriculture and farming, although there has been no cost estimate released yet.
Before demolition, McGrath tore down the Exploradome’s interior walls, leaving materials and structures in place for more efficient removal after the dome’s fabric was deflated and removed.
The building materials, such as doors, door hardware, steel frames and light fixtures, will be reused, repurposed or recycled. The concrete foundation will be used as a clean fill at a new construction site. The PVF dome fabric will even be repurposed by farmers to protect hay bales from weather.
The Exploradome’s basement will also be reused in the design of the new building. Until designs for the new building are completed, McGrath will preserve the basement by covering the slab with a waterproof membrane and installing a rock ballast over the membrane. The foundation and slab extends about a foot above the finish grade and the rock will spill over the edge, resembling a Meramec River gravel pile.
HOK, a St. Louis-based architectural firm, is working on the master planning of the St. Louis Science Center, including the planning and design of the former Exploradome site.