Space for Life

Space for Life (French: Espace pour la vie) is a museum district in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that brings together the city's four most prominent natural museums: the Montreal Biodome, the Montreal Insectarium, the Montreal Botanical Garden and the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium.

Space for Life was established in 2011 as a successor body to Montreal Nature Museums. It describes itself as "a vast project based on citizen participation and co-creation with visitors." As of 2013, its executive director is Charles-Mathieu Brunelle and Montreal executive committee member Manon Gauthier is responsible for its political oversight.

What is Space for Life ?

The Montreal Biodome, Insectarium, Botanical Garden and Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium invite us to rethink the ties between human beings and nature, cultivating a new way of living. Together, the four prestigious institutions form a place where nature and science are honoured. They have positioned themselves as a Space for Life and are dedicated to sharing their vast heritage and knowledge with you.

Space for Life is a place that brings together the Montreal Biodome, Insectarium, Botanical Garden and Planetarium, but it is also much more. It’s a participatory movement and a commitment to biodiversity. It is a vast project based on citizen participation and co-creation with visitors. Just like nature belongs to everyone, it is everyone’s movement. It’s a state of mind, a way of experiencing nature. It is a space we visit where we can exchange, collaborate and learn.

The mission

Through its efforts in communication, conservation, education and research, Space for Life guides humans to better experience nature.

Space for Life is a place

The Space for Life comprises the Montreal Biodome,Botanical Garden, Insectarium and Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium. The institutions are interdependent, and designed to inspire visitors to adopt a new way of experiencing nature. They are connected by the Grande Place, a space that inspires new ways of coming together, enjoying the site, playing outside, building, interacting and experiencing everyday life.

Space for Life is the largest natural science museum complex in Canada, one of the leading tourist sites in Montréal and all of Quebec and a place with immense potential to impress and thrill visitors through nature, explain nature and encourage behaviour that is respectful of nature.

Space for Life is a commitment

Space for Life is also committed to increasing awareness of our planet’s biodiversity and encouraging people to better protect it. In fact, our four institutions have created a sustainable development charter.

By offering visitors immersive experiences combining science and emotion, the Biodôme, Botanical Garden, Insectarium and Planetarium invite us all to look at nature differently.

We have a collective commitment to nature, but also a commitment to achievement, meaningfulness and mobilization.

Space for Life is a movement

With their participatory, unifying approach that is authentic, inventive, committed and open to the world, our four institutions have joined forces to create a movement, a Space for Life; a place where people come together to create, shaped by Montrealers and visitors from around the world.

Space for Life has initiated a movement that aims to help people better understand the concept of interdependence underlying biodiversity, become aware of the services provided by nature and gradually change the way they live. Our institutions invite you to join the movement, by taking an active part and spreading the message yourself.

The Space for Life is a collective initiative encouraging Montrealers and local stakeholders to become involved and make it their own.

A movement to get closer to nature A participatory, creative, historic movement

Sustainable development at Space for Life

At Space for Life, our approach to sustainable development informs all our decisions and actions, encouraging us to consider the inextricable connections between society, ethics, the economy and the environment.

With this goal in mind, we are committed to integrating sustainable development principles in all our activities. This includes our charter of commitment and 11 areas of focus:

• Biodiversity;
• Natural and cultural heritage;
• Environmentally responsible practices;
• Waste management;
• Natural resource management;
• Sustainable transportation;
• Ecodesign;
• Information, awareness and education;
• Governance and the workplace;
• Economic activity;
• Social engagement.

Major project

Montréal Space for Life is the largest natural science museum complex in Canada. By 2019, four major projects will have been developed, creating constantly evolving and changing spaces for life.

As Montreal's 375th anniversary approaches

The Insectarium Metamorphosis, the Biodôme Migration and two other major Space for Life projects are a legacy for Montrealers, for the planet and for future generations.

At a time when the issues the planet is facing, especially those related to the loss of biodiversity, raise the question of the relevance of our modern lifestyles, Space for Life, which is rooted in these unique institutions whose reputation and credibility are recognized both locally and internationally, has a fundamental role to play.

These two projects – characterized by their uniqueness, both in terms of architecture and design and the memorable and distinctive experiences they offer visitors – will let Space for Life truly play its role by inviting citizens to reconnect with nature and invent new ways of living. Reflecting a multidisciplinary vision wherein the architectural gesture emerges from a global creative approach, a bold architectural design will create living spaces that are permeable, ecological and evolving, while meeting the highest green building standards.

The Insectarium’s Metamorphosis

Winning Submission

Kuehn Malvezzi, Pelletier De Fontenay, Jodoin Lamarre Pratte, Dupras Ledoux and NCK

The project

A unique experience

The Insectarium will become a true biotope in which insects, plants and people can interact and take an interest in one another. In an architectural space that is both a landscape and an organism, the underground and closed spaces, water, shadow and daylight follow and play off one another along a route that plunges visitors into an immersive, sensory experience in the heart of the world of insects.

Technical Aspects

• Materials encouraging the greatest proximity with the insects (water, glass)
• New immersive space (butterfly house)
• Changes in architectural and museographic scale and perspective
• Individual experience spaces (face-to-face with insects)
• Museum functional spaces (laboratories, greenhouses, breeding facilities, offices)
• Transparent openings revealing the building’s ecological workings and the support processes for the live insects

Biodôme Migration

The design team

KANVA + NEUF architect(e)s, Bouthillette Parizeau + NCK

The project

A renewed experience, re-thinking the deeper meaning of the ecosystems.

The Migration project will revamp the Biodôme and its scenic design, in most areas accessible to the public, to offer an innovative, participatory, immersive experience. The architects compare the Biodôme to a living organism and their concept echoes notions of cellular biology. The cell, the basic building block of life, becomes a model for structuring and shaping the building blocks of nature – ecosystems. The design team is proposing to reorganize the spaces, open up the centre of the Biodôme, and offer bold, complementary experiences.

The overall project budget is $22 million. This includes professional and project management fees, studies, construction costs, restoration, acquisition and relocation of live collections, museology, furniture, various contingencies, etc.

Technical Aspects

• A curved wall wraps around each ecosystem like a sensitive, delicate skin.
• A mezzanine with a lookout and new perspectives on all the ecosystems.
• The sub-Antarctic region will be expanded and the sub-Arctic region will become more immersive.
• The scenic design in some of the habitats will be redone, for a more immersive and moving visitor experience, appealing to the senses:
• Tropical Forest: larger numbers and more visible birds, fish and invertebrates
• Laurentian Maple Forest: visitors will be closer to the animals
• Gulf of St. Lawrence: reconfigured architecture and scenic design
• New welcoming and distinctive spaces where visitors can wander freely and intuitively.
• A grandiose main lobby, opened up and reconfigured to suit the scale of the building.

Programmation informations can be found on http://espacepourlavie.ca/en