The country’s first world-class science museum is now set to rise in time for Year 2011 opening. Groundbreaking of The Mind Museum at Taguig (TMMaT) was recently held at the site – the super prime, crescent shape 12,000-sqm lot at the J.Y. Campos Park of Bonifacio High Street in BGC.

Estimated to cost P1 billion, The Mind Museum at Taguig is envisioned to be a showcase of “What we know, how we know it, and what we do with what we know.” Over 175 interactive exhibits of the museum will feature science facts and the process of discovery and their applications.

They will be told through five main stories, corresponding to the museum’s five main galleries and spanning the entire range of nature’s elements: Atom, Life, Universe, Earth, and Technology. It will be a place where science can be learned in fascinating and entertaining way.

Project proponent, Bonifacio Art Foundation Inc. (BAFI), with a Board of Trustees composed of individuals from Ayala Land, Inc., Campos Group of Companies, BCDA, and a representative from the property owners of Bonifacio Global City tapped some of RP’s best designers, artists, scientists and the world’s most renowned names in museum-building.

The space-age design of the museum is the brainchild of a team of architects from Philippines’ very own Lor Calma & Partners (LC&P), led by architect Ed Calma. The inspiration behind the building’s futuristic, yet organic look was based on cellular growth and structures.

Mirroring the functionality of nature, some features of the building’s innovative and sustainable design include: A curved roof for more efficient rain collection, slanted exterior walls to minimize the entry of sunlight, and strategic orientation to utilize the shadows of adjacent buildings, all of which contribute to greater efficiency.

Calma opines that the form and location of The Mind Museum at Taguig are most interesting as it is a place in “a sea of box buildings and it celebrates the terminus of the Bonifacio High Street axis” – a combination that is sure to awe visitors. Calma hopes that The Mind Museum will influence a generation of Filipinos to see science and art in a different light, to help them see the connection between the two fields, as well as remove the intimidating edge of science.

Apart from LC&P, helping ensure a truly world-class, most modern and effective learning facility are TMMat’s other prestigious partner organizations like: Singapore Science Center, one of the leading science centers in the world with 30 years of experience in operating a museum, is the planning consultant; the exhibition master plan and key exhibit designs is being undertaken by Jack Rouse & Associates (JRA, based in Cincinnati, USA), recognized as among the top ten museum designers in the world; Canada’s Cobalt Engineering is the museum’s engineering consultant [It has 37 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) accredited professionals]; National Geographic is an institutional partner through the access to its entire digital library that it is giving to the museum and the plan to make the Museum as the venue of National Geographic exhibits in the future.

TMMaT’s pioneer donors include: Ajinomoto Philippines Corporation, Ayala Foundation in memory of Mercedes Zobel de Ayala McMicking & Joseph R. McMicking, Ayala Land, Bank of the Philippine Islands, Del Monte Philippines, Delfi Foods Inc. (Goya Chocolates), Fort Bonifacio Development Corporation, Globe Telecom, Hapee Toothpaste, HSBC, IMI Group of Companies, JPMorgan Chase and Co., Manila Water Corporation, National Book Store, NutriAsia Inc., Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corporation (PASAR), SC Johnson and Son, Pilipinas Shell, Sony, St. Luke’s Medical Center, Tan Yan Kee Foundation, Timezone, Uratex Foam, and the families of Joselito D. Campos Jr, Mariano K. Tan, and Dr. Rolando Puno and Dr. Regina Busuego-Puno.

The consultants and designers who have helped include: Acoustic Analysis, Aromin and Sy structural engineer, B & C Design, Davis Langdon and Seah Philippines (DLS), DQA Environmental Design, Ian Campbell Project Management, NBF Consulting Engineers, Primesoft Philippines, R. A. Mojica and Partners professional electrical engineers, R. J. Calpo & Company engineering consultants, and Six Degrees Design.