The Cade Museum for Creativity + Invention in Gainesville, Fla., is devoted to exploring and expanding creativity. Named after Dr. James Robert Cade, the professor best known for inventing Gatorade, the museum has an eye-catching design that appears to almost be in motion. With its cylindrical core and extending arcs, the sense of movement is reinforced by the running lines of the façade’s corrugated metal wall and roof panels.
Corrugated metal panels create a sense of motion on new museum
Cade Museum for Creativity + Invention, Gainesville, Fla. Photo: Hortonphotoinc.com.
Designed by GWWO Architects, Baltimore, the museum has an exploded-circle plan with six different radiuses around the building. Alan Reed, FAIA, LEED AP, design principal at GWWO Architects, notes the building design was conceived as a metaphor for the human brain. “Inspired by the way in which neurons in the brain grow and continually make new connections, the building’s cylindrical core—known as the rotunda—serves as the nucleus where all ideas begin from and return to,” Reed says. “Each extension symbolizes the way in which neurons grow and create new connections similar to how the visitor experience builds as one travels throughout the galleries and labs, ultimately returning to the rotunda energized and enlightened.”
As Reed explains, “A vortex of creative energy, the rotunda was designed to be a space where there’s constant motion—of people and of ideas. That feeling of movement extends to the exterior through the use of overlapping panels of textured metal and constantly changing views as visitors move around the perimeter.”
In addition to the story of invention, Reed notes that the site’s physical context was another important consideration. Reed says the design team chose to clad the exterior in metal panels as a nod to the manufacturing buildings that previously occupied the region. In addition to keeping the project within budget, the design team also wanted a material that was durable and timeless.
Loren Taylor, project manager with Architectural Sheet Metal (ASM), Orlando, Fla., notes the company installed a total of 11,400 square feet of 22-gauge PAC-CLAD corrugated straight panels and 6,000 square feet of PAC-CLAD corrugated curved panels, all in a Galvalume Plus finish from Petersen Aluminum Corp., Elk Grove Village, Ill.
For the soffit panels, ASM installed Reynobond metal composite material by Arconic Architectural Products Inc., Eastman, Ga., fabricated by Abrams Architectural Products Inc., Austell, Ga. Additionally, Norcross, Ga.-based Kawneer Co. Inc. supplied its 1600 Curtainwall and TF451T Storefront system, installed by Shea’s Glass Co., Gainesville.
In addition to inventing Gatorade, Dr. Cade, who was a professor of renal (kidney) medicine, also invented the first shock-dissipating football helmet, and developed a high-protein milkshake used by athletes and cancer patients. He was also an avid collector of both historic violins and Studebaker carriages and automobiles. In 2004, he and his wife set up a foundation to fund the museum’s construction, as well as a permanent gift to cover part of its ongoing operations.
The Cade Museum incorporates laboratory and maker spaces, gathering space for puzzling and presentations, as well as a permanent exhibit on the science behind the beverage that built Dr. Cade’s reputation.
The current 21,000-square-foot facility is set up for a planned second phase that will expand the museum by an additional 24,000 square feet. Knowing the building would be expanded, Reed notes that it was extremely important for growth to appear organic. “Inspired by nature, the design allows for new galleries to extend from the core, mimicking how a tree sprouts new branches and appearing as one cohesive structure that has matured over time,” he says.
The museum serves as an anchor to the city’s reinvigorated Depot Park, and was designed not only to appeal to out-of-town visitors, but also to serve as a community center offering nearly nightly programs and educational programing that appeals to visitors of all ages. “By offering these types of programs and designing the idea spaces for them, the Cade Museum has become a vibrant hub embraced by the community,” Reed adds.