Exploratorium
San Francisco, CA

Description Of Site

The new Exploratorium site is on Piers 15 and 17 in San Francisco. The museum offers indoor and outdoor exhibits, as well as public and private events. This is the country’s largest net-zero energy museum, and received an AIA Honor Award for Energy + Sustainability.

The museum hours are flexible depending on the types of events being held. In addition to maintaining security, the site needed to be welcoming to visitors while discouraging negative activity.

The site also incorporated two historic Pier buildings, which needed to visually maintain their historic essence.

SBD Involvement

Recommendations included various types of alarms for different areas of the building, including alarms to notify staff of problems for temperature sensitive displays and other museum-specific items.

Access control measures were used to manage various groups of visitors and allow for more automation in opening and closing the museum.

Video surveillance provides an audit trail for events, as well as facilitating the child protection policy. The video equipment was chosen both for its particular functionality and its discrete footprint, in order to promote a friendly atmosphere.

Of Special Interest

• Maintain the look and feel of a historic building while incorporating modern security architecture
• Centrally controlled building systems, by schedule or manually maintained for flexibility
• Contribute to the goal of a net-zero energy facility