Aquarium's Pacific Visions Unveiled

The Aquarium of the Pacific’s new addition – Pacific Visions – is now open to the public.

With the first major expansion in the aquarium’s 20-year history, guests can now explore the state-of-the-art wing when visiting the popular sea life museum.

“After more than a decade of planning and building, we are excited to open Pacific Visions to the public,” Aquarium of the Pacific President and CEO Jerry Schubel said in a statement.

“Pacific Visions is unlike any other aquarium expansion project. We are taking a unique, unconventional approach in creating a space where the focus is on the one species that is affecting all others on Earth: humans,” he said.

“Pacific Visions is a place where scientists, policymakers and the public can come together to explore solutions to create a better future for all.”

The $53 million project includes a 2,800-square-foot art gallery, which includes Reefs & Drifters designed by Convivial Studio, a European art and design practice.

Pacific Visions’ architect is San Francisco-based EHDD. And the project team includes a list of companies including Clark Construction Group from Bethesda, MD, as the general contractor.

The art gallery features exhibits of corals and plankton where “visitors will be immersed in nature’s diversity and resilience through a multisensory experience featuring video projections accompanied by spatial soundscapes, a touchable coral sculpture wall, glass sculptures inspired by plankton and a collection of mirrored exhibits called Infinity Coral,” reads an aquarium press release.

After visiting the art gallery, people then gather in the 2,600-square-foot orientation gallery, where they can see an 18-foot-wide virtual waterfall that responds to movement. A 26-foot-wide by 8-foot-tall LED screen plays a pre-show film on the adjacent wall, educating on the connection between humans and nature.

Then guests enter the highlight of the big, blue building: The Honda Pacific Visions Theater.

Guests watch an 8-minute film in the large auditorium on a 130-foot-long by 32-foot-tall screen that curves in a 180-degree arc with a 30-foot diameter floor projection disc on the ground. The movie – Designing Our Future – teaches on the history of the planet and how mankind is harming it and what can be done to reverse the situation.

The seats vibrate during the film to complement rough or violent parts in the movie; for instance, a waterfall crashing. Breezes blow on guests when wind blows in the movie. And fog, scents and strobe lights come on when appropriate in the two-story, dynamic digital theater.

Visitors walk upstairs to exit the movie house and then enter the culmination gallery where interactive game tables, displays and live animal exhibits await.

“Designed by Bowman Change Inc. with Cortina Productions, the 5,000-square-foot exhibition features multiplayer interactive tables highlighting California’s ongoing efforts to create resource sustainability; a 50-foot interactive media wall that visitors touch to reveal facts, videos and innovations to make our food, energy and water systems more sustainable; and three live animal exhibits,” the release states.

Upon exiting the gallery, visitors find themselves upstairs in the regular aquarium, overlooking the model of the blue whale which hangs in the Great Hall.

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