Photo by Matthew Millman

Bay Area Discovery Museum

Sausalito, California

A new campus‑wide master plan and renovation honors the architectural integrity of the Bay Area Discovery Museum’s historic site and its child‑focused mission, transforming the guest experience for each of the museum’s 350,000 annual visitors.

Design Principal
Alan Maskin

The Learning Challenge

The Bay Area Discovery Museum is one of the few museum projects in the world with its own early-childhood research division leading original research, evaluation and innovation in the field of early childhood development. The design of this STE(A)M-based learning center was developed with the museum’s research team, staff, parents, and children—including an early design workshop that invited kids and families to imagine a future climbing structure and playspace.

The Site

Bay Area Discovery Museum is located at Fort Baker, a historically significant site and former WW1 military base, within the Golden Gate National Recreation area. The site was turned into a children’s museum by community volunteers in the 1980s and makes use of the 100-year-old military storage buildings and horse stables, as well as a significant outdoor nature park. The museum occupies the kind of beautiful and significant location that is rarely developed for children’s programming.

Designing for Infants & Toddlers

Tot Spot provides an age-appropriate introduction to STE(A)M learning during a crucial time in their early cognitive development. As the museum’s youngest guests crawl, toddle, feel and hop through themed environments, they build vital language, motor and social-emotional skills. Environments are designed to engage adults and encourage interaction with their children; research shows that children have the most meaningful museum experiences when other members of their family participate, too.

Tot Spot’s installations are united through an interactive mural by Bay Area artist Steven Valenziano. Painted in high contrast black and white—because very young children don’t experience color the same way as adults or older kids—the mural features animals and plants native to the project site in Marin County

How Does That Work?

The How Things Work exhibit features familiar items displayed in section, revealing their inner workings and the many small components that contribute to their function. Inspired by the ways children visualize their world—drawing in section comes naturally to them—the exhibit effectively reflects children’s language back to them in a three-dimensional environment. Intended for all ages, this exhibit empowers children to look beyond the surface level and recognize the nuance and technology at work inside every day objects.

A Drawing Arm & A Music Box

Designed for visitors 3 – 10 years old, the Try It Studio features machines that children can use and adapt, encouraging them to experiment and build on STE(A)M learning concepts introduced elsewhere.

Try It Studio

In the Try It Studio, a projection mapping activity invites kids to build structures, providing a new perspective on their work through an aerial view. The adjacent Think, Make, Try Classroom introduces guests to digital fabrication technologies that children rarely have access to, like 3D printers and vinyl cutters. Kinetic furniture, room dividers and stairs can be easily modified by staff.

The “Real Thing”

An existing exterior exhibit that utilized a real boat for imagination and play was beloved by museum guests, but small and in need of replacement. The new boat, Faith—a fully functional, decommissioned commercial fishing vessel known as a salmon troller—is both larger and more accessible than the previous iteration and includes multiple interior and exterior levels. This approach likewise honors children’s ability to perceive authenticity over replication and crafts an exciting, interactive, and safe space for exploration.

Adventurous Outdoor Play

Repurposing an underutilized space on the BADM campus, Gumnut Grove introduces a climbing activity area that allows children aged 5-10 to refine their gross motor skills, explore risk, and develop confidence in a safe environment. Here, Olson Kundig collaborated with landscape architects Surfacedesign to develop a design inspired by the seedpods of eucalyptus trees that surround the site. The large-scale, interactive sculptures were envisioned as a way to encourage visitors to engage with the tree canopy and experience a new perspective of an extraordinary view.

When I first set foot on the property and saw what is arguably one of the most spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay, I was astounded to learn what was once a World War I military installation was now a learning campus for children. I was excited about the opportunity to renovate the Bay Area Discovery Museum and align Olson Kundig’s design with their visionary education theories and practices. Alan Maskin

Design Principal

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Olson Kundig