Museum Project Development

MUSEUM PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

STARTUP
Prior to construction of the The Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) Museum of Natural History, activities were run and coordinated from Belmont Station, the private home of David and Judy Elliott. Temporary fossil preparation and storage facilities, while limited in scope, were extremely productive. The Museum project will be developed in three stages, with Stage 1 seeing relocation of facilities from Belmont Station to the permanent Jump-Up museum site.

STAGE 1

Stage 1 requires coordination of many sub-projects.
A variety of basic infrastructure must be established before the site can accept visitors and normal fossil preparation and storage activities recommence.

Projects include the establishment of all-weather gravel road access to the site, two staff cottages, short-stay housing for volunteers, temporary fossil preparation building and facilities, secure fossil storage facilities, power and water infrastructure, dam construction, site fencing, removal of feral animals (mostly goats) and plants (prickly acacia), signposting, parking and trailer unhitching areas, safety fencing, temporary shop facilities, and public amenities. This stage has been funded and will be completed ready to commence operations in July 2009.

Status: Completed. Some projets are ongoing (such as removal of re-infestations of feral plants and animals). Existing amenities and facilities will continue to be improved and developed.

STAGE 2

Stage 2 of the AAOD Museum project involved construction of the Reception Centre and associated infrastructure which has been built 500 metres south of the fossil preparation facility (Stage 1).

Stage 2 has enabled AAOD to handle larger numbers of people and provide a more comprehensive experience to the public. It has also enabled the fossil ‘type collection’ to be relocated out of insulated shipping containers and into a temperature controlled display area. These highly significant fossils are now on permanent display along with an amazing depiction of Australia as it may have looked nearly 100 million years ago. This stage also incorporates the initial development of walking trails and natural history tours.

The Reception Centre was funded by the Federal Government for $1m with support from Arts Qld ($50,000) Winton Shire Council and numerous corporations and individuals. The building was designed pro-bono by Cox Rayner Architects and built at cost by Woollam Constructions.

Stage 2 was officially opened to the public on 8 April 2012 by the Hon Simon Crean, Federal Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government.

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STAGE 3

This is the last major stage of the AAOD Museum’s development and due to the enormity of this stage, it may be necessary to complete it in several phases. This is the biggest single step the project will take and the primary reason for the first two stages is that when this step is taken, the majority of products, services, programs and operating protocols are either in place or well advanced in their development.

Stage 3 will see the construction of a multi-million dollar working dinosaur museum facility with preparation laboratory, collection and type room facilities, classrooms, theatres and comprehensive displays. It will also encompass a wide range of ‘external’ displays and dioramas over a large area of the mesa and the building of all associated infrastructure such as parking space, picnic and rest room facilities, walking trails and guided tour facilities. The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History will be situated approximately 2 km further south south/west from the Reception area.

The reception area (Stage 2) will remain as the payment entry gate for museum visitors but its display area will be converted to archival storage, off-site collection register back-up storage and

additional office space for general administration, society administration, AAOD Journal production and management offices. This has been purposely designed to minimise the construction of high cost building space at the museum.

The fossil preparation shed (Stage 1) will be converted to vehicle garaging, equipment storage, bulk merchandise storage and workshop facilities for general maintenance and the construction of museum displays. This will also be a huge saving on high cost museum building space and remove all heavy construction work such as welding to an area safely away from the public.

Apart from museum building construction, Stage 3 includes the development of comprehensive education programs, teacher’s development courses, overseas study tours and scientific research programs. It will also incorporate the construction of natural history displays and dioramas external to the museum building as well as advanced tours and experiential activities.

It is envisaged that Stage 3 will be under construction by 2013.