The DNA of the National Museum of Natural History - BluPrint. Looking up at the Tree of Life structure and dome which now covers the central courtyard of the adaptive reuse of the original Antonio Toledo-designed building, by Dominic Galicia Architects and Periquet Galicia, Inc.
A hybrid system of a single layer shell and trusses is applied to the Tree of Life dome, in order to replicate the appearance of a tree branch and also make the structure as efficient as possible in order to minimize construction cost. The challenge was to locate the diagonals and lower chords to equally support the dome structure. The trusses, therefore, are arranged in both a radial direction and in a circumferential direction. To support the dome with high flexibility, the Nippon Steel truss system (Nippon Steel Technology) is adopted for the diagonals and lower chords.
