Tybee Island Marine Science Center, a non-profit organization offering an authentic coastal experience for locals and visitors on the island, is making headway on their new facility. The design team arrived in Savannah last week to discuss details on the project.

The design efforts are lead by Cambridge Seven, a world-renowned architecture firm based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts that does highly collaborative work across the country. They’re well known for their complex designs, and have completed similar marine projects and aquariums in the past. Their main goal on the Tybee Island Marine Science Center facility is to bring the outside in. They want to carry out the center’s mission of cultivating responsible stewardship of coastal Georgia’s natural resources through education, conservation, and research. Aiken LSS Design & Engineering, Cortina Productions, Sottile & Sottile, Wallcrawls, West Construction Company, Kern Engineering and leadership at the Marine Science Center also make up the design team for this big project.

The new center is located on four-fifths of an acre and situated for minimal impact on the dune system and to catch prevailing winds for passive cooling and ventilation. The conditioned interior space is 5,400 sq. ft. and the ground-level open-air undercroft, of that same dimension, doubles as a usable area for classes and programs.