Children's Museum of the East End (CMEE)

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF THE EAST END

Bridgehampton, NY

SKOLNICK’s overarching theme for the architectural and exhibit design of the Children’s Museum of the East End (CMEE) was “journey.” The experience encourages children and their families to explore their world, beginning with the local heritage of their Long Island community. Fun and fantastical environments such as a magical bedroom, a tree house, and a musical forest invite play, discovery, and exploration.

Services
Interpretive Master Planning
Architectural Design
Exhibition Design and Development
Interpretive Programming

Size
14,000 sf building with 3,600 sf of exhibits

OUTDOOR CONNECTIONS

The building takes as its inspiration the indigenous Long Island Potato Barn. It emerges out of bermed earth, thereby reducing its apparent volume and utilizing the ground’s insulating properties. Extensive site planning and landscape design features were also utilized to create an environment where a broad range of outdoor programming activities can take place, including an outdoor amphitheater for performances and film screenings.

POPS OF COLOR

The architecture’s natural colors, forms, and materials blend into the landscape. These are juxtaposed with bright and colorful punctuations like the free-form, yellow fiber glass coat room that acts as an entry gate. Around the building, bands of rainbow-colored tinted concrete lead kids out to the surrounding landscape where a maze garden awaits their discovery.

LOCAL HERITAGE

The exhibits take children on a journey from a bedroom to a backyard to a village and finally out into the world. On their travels, children learn about their local Long Island community through activities that include dressing in historical costumes, re-creating masterpieces by local artists, and tracing the lifecycle of a potato from the farm to the general store.

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