The last panel of the planetarium dome at the Science Center & Planetarium went into place this spring, and the building is now dry. That closes out the hardest piece of the structure and opens the most exacting part of the job: a dome theater for 300 people and a projection system that has to land to the millimeter.
A dome is only as good as its geometry
A planetarium screen is a perforated aluminum shell hung inside a structural dome. If the shell is out of round by a small amount, the stars on it smear and the seams show. That makes the steel and the framing behind it a precision job, not a rough one.
Delivered under a CM at-risk contract, the project gave us a seat at the table early. Our VDC team modeled the dome steel piece by piece, and our field engineers surveyed every ring as it was set, comparing the as-built points to the model before the next ring went up. Acoustic layers, ductwork and the catwalks that serve the projectors were all coordinated in the same model, so nothing in the space behind the screen would push it out of shape.
Most of the best work on this building is work you will never see. It is the ring of steel that is exactly where the model says it is, and the duct that never touches the screen.
Project superintendent, Tum Harry
Climate, light and the systems behind them
A dome theater has to be dark, quiet and steady. The air system serving it is designed for low noise and even temperature, because a projector drifts as the room changes. Our team will run those systems through weeks of testing before the projection equipment arrives.
The same rigor goes into the technology the public will never see: the projection and audio systems, the show control network, the cameras and access control across the exhibit halls and the maker lab. They will be installed, tested and tied together by the team that built the rooms, so the building and the systems inside it are handed over as one.
What comes next
With the dome closed in, the screen installation, the exhibit halls and the glass-walled maker lab move to the front of the schedule. Our thanks go to the owner and the design team for their trust, and to every trade partner and craft professional on the job. The best review will come later, from the first visitors who look up and forget they are under a roof.
