[ Music plays ] [ Music plays ] Lacovara: The concept for the museum came from the fossil quarry itself.

Once we started to understand the paleontological riches that we had in the quarry, we knew that, "A," we had to preserve the location, and then, "B," we had to find a way to share it with the public.

And what better way to share it with the public than to build a museum right on site, overlooking the fossil quarry?

Wong: Like art, which is the embodiment of human culture, I think architecture also demonstrates a lasting record of what we people feel is important.

Architecture does take a sort of personal expression, something that comes deep with inside that you're bringing to the table, but it also requires a deep consideration of what this place or the place you're creating needs.

Lacovara: The first two things I said to Tom were, "No fossil fuels at the fossil park, and build us a building that could exist nowhere else."

Sniderman: The core thesis that Professor Kenneth Lacovara gave us was, "You have to give primary importance to the visitor."

So, all of the decisions that are being made, from the big-scale idea to all of the small-scale details, are geared towards how the visitor is going to see them and how the visitor is going to experience them.

So, that includes things like interacting and exposing people to views and a journey down into the quarry.

That includes this concept of framing the views and having lenses bridge the interior experience and the exterior.

Lacovara: I think the thing that I'm most proud of with this building is that the building itself is a metaphor for our mission, and our mission is to discover the past and protect the future.

Wong: Natural history museums educate people about the natural world.

That is done not only through the messaging, through the experience of the exhibits, but the demonstration of this building and how it operates in the world is a model for how other buildings, or even people in general, can be more responsible.

Sniderman: We as architects want to promote sustainability because that's what's going to be needed to solve the world's problems moving forward.

Lacovara: The operation of this building contributes no greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

We achieve that by having geothermal wells under our parking lot.

That provides all of our heating and our cooling needs.

And then currently we have a power-purchase agreement for a source of renewable electricity.

Ultimately, I would like to have a photovoltaic field on the property so that we are not only a carbon net-zero facility, but we become an exporter of clean electricity back to the grid.

We have reduced-carbon concrete.

We have a lot of mass timber in the building and wood cladding, so we have a lot of embodied carbon in the building.

We imported a product called Ornilux, which relies on evolutionary principles to create bird-safe glass.

To us mammals, the glass looks like clear glass, but to birds, who are literal dinosaurs, the glass looks like spider webs, and they are evolutionarily adapted to avoid spider webs.

We made sure that we included a lot of free activities on the property, like the cafe and the veranda and the nature trails and the playground, because we really wanted to embed this place in the community.

If people are habituated to gathering here, then surely at some point they're going to take in our stories, they're going to -- they're going to take in our message, learn about our planet.

And really our ultimate goal here is people love what they know and people protect what they love.

And we would like for people to get to know this amazing planet that we live on, we would like them to fall in love with this incredible planet, and then we would like them to protect it so that our children and our grandchildren have the same beautiful Earth that we have enjoyed.

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