AMELIA EARHART MUSEUM
ATCHISON, KS | ARCH 208 | FALL 2015
Located across from the birthplace of world-renown pilot Amelia Earhart, the Amelia Earhart Museum sits on a high bluff overlooking the Missouri River Valley in Atchison, Kansas. Housing two full-scale replica planes (modeled after the originals used by Amelia Earhart herself), the museum also features additional exhibition and event space for the existing Birthplace Museum across the street.
Service areas such as a gift shop, café, and theater are stacked on the north side of the building, opening to a quadruple-height enclosure containing the replica planes. A suspended ramp system allows visitors to experience each plane from a variety of angles as they wrap around the perimeter of the main space. A special architectural feature of the Amelia Earhart Museum is its high-tech space frame structure. While this aluminum space frame’s primary purpose is to create a large, unobstructed exhibition space, it is also being used to suspend a replica plane and the perimeter ramp system.
Unique environmental systems in the Amelia Earhart Museum include a double-envelop glass façade and Earth tubes. Working to mitigate the workload of the building’s mechanical systems, intake vents on the north side of the building transport fresh air underground where it is pre-conditioned for the mechanical system. Additionally, a large double-envelop curtain wall system on the southern faces of the building help to propel stack ventilation. Cool air is drawn into the air space between the curtain walls, which is then heated by the sun. As the air warms, it pulls air from inside the building through operable vents at the top of the curtain wall and out of the museum.
