At-Bristol

At-Bristol
Location within {{{pushpin_map}}}
Established	2000
Location	Canon's Wharf, Bristol, England
Website	Official At-Bristol Site

At-Bristol is a public science and technology "exploration" and education centre and charity in Bristol, England.

As a visitor attraction, At-Bristol has hundreds of hands-on exhibits, and a Planetarium with seasonal shows for the over fives, and a 'Little Stars' show for children aged five and under. In addition to trails and activities, they also have changing exhibitions and presenter-led Live Science shows. They have recently started holding special events for under sixes called 'Toddler Takeover'.

At-Bristol also welcomes 40,000 school pupils every year, from pre-school to post-16, for school visits and education workshops. They are also host to the Science Learning Centre South West, and together they offer continuing professional development for teachers and other science communicators.

There are rooms and roof terraces above the exhibition that At-Bristol offers for venue hire, and these have been used for events such as the Sky News media hub for the General Election Debate, as well as other conferences, meetings and events. These spaces are also available for weddings and civil partnerships. At-Bristol also hires out the exhibition floor, Planetarium, Millennium Square and Anchor. Although they are a separate organisation to the Bristol Aquarium, they manage their venue hire spaces.

Another interesting fact is that At-Bristol has its own exhibition workshop on site. This has allowed them to develop an 'Exhibition Services' arm, where they provide exhibitions and/or exhibits for sale or hire, for other science centres, museums and visitor attractions.

At-Bristol also fundraises to run projects, to allow them to do outreach work, taking science out to groups who can't visit At-Bristol. That includes a variety of groups, from low-income schools to hospitals.

At its opening the centre consisted of Explore, which contains features on mechanics, sound and light, computer science, space and the human brain; Wildwalk, a science centre comprising two artificial rainforests, aquariums and other ecology-related exhibits; and an IMAX theatre.

Wildwalk and the IMAX Theatre closed at the end of March 2007 due to a lack of funding and government support. Explore rebranded to At-Bristol in June 2010, and continues to operate, and the Wildwalk building has been converted into an aquarium by Blue Reef Aquarium, with the IMAX cinema being used to show nature and wildlife films.

History and background

The project opened in 2000 as the successor to the Exploratory, a large science museum and demonstration centre, founded by Richard Gregory, in the former terminus train shed at Bristol Temple Meads Station (later home to the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum), but moved to a city centre site as part of the regeneration of the historical Floating Harbour. The project was funded with £44.3 million from the National Lottery, Millennium Commission, South West of England Regional Development Agency, and a further £43.4 million from commercial partners (including a controversial donation from Nestlé) and Bristol City Council.

The centre is situated on the former Canon's Wharf. Wildwalk and the IMAX cinema occupied a modified 19th century former lead-works building, and Explore occupies a 1906 railway goods shed measuring 540 ft by 133 ft (165 m by 41 m). The goods shed was one of the first buildings to use reinforced concrete and both buildings are Grade II listed buildings. The buildings are located around Millennium Square - also part of the regeneration - and Pero's Bridge, a footbridge across the harbour which links it to the Arnolfini art gallery, Bristol Industrial Museum and Queen Square.

The centre is popularly known as @Bristol, due to the appearance of its logo. This features the word "at" surrounded by a partial circle, reminiscent of an @ symbol. However, the official spelling is At-Bristol, which is how the name appears on the web site and promotional material.

At-Bristol joined the 10:10 project in 2010 in a bid to reduce their carbon footprint. One year later they announced that they had reduced their carbon emissions (according to 10:10's criteria) by 12%.

At-Bristol

At-Bristol, showing Explore to the right, and the Planetarium, within the large stainless-steel sphere and in the foreground a Space Signpost.

At-Bristol is a hands-on science centre, with a number of different areas:

• All About Us - This opened in Spring 2011 and has 50 interactive exhibits which allow visitors to discover how amazing the human body is.
• Real Brain - As part of the All About Us exhibition, At-Bristol has an exhibit that displays a real human brain. Real Brain has been produced to give visitors an understanding of medical science research.
• Animate It! - this exhibition was developed with Aardman Animations. Visitors can make their own animated films (2D and 3D), see a film set from Wallace & Gromit's 'A Matter of Loaf and Death', or make Morph spin in a Praxinoscope.
• Flight zone - Understand more about what factors effect flight and build your own flying object. Includes the Bernoulli Blower.
• All About Our World - Allows visitor to discover the world around us through investigation. Includes Icy Bodies, Giant Bubbles and the Turbulent Orb.
• The Planetarium - seasonal presenter-led star shows for over fives, and 'Little Stars' show for fives and under
• Tiny Explorers - Exhibition areas for the under eights, these include storytelling and dress up. Currently they have Jet, set go! and Fossils and Funnybones
• Investigate - Lots of mini science experiments
• Move It - The first large area when entering the museum, Move It deals with forces ( in the exhibit Naturally Newton) and flight (Dreams of Flight).
• Your Amazing Brain – The second large section on the ground floor, this area deals with the human brain, in particular optical illusions and memory.
• Curiosity Zone – Incorporating most of the upper level, this area deals with sound, light, force, magnets, and also includes a mock television studio.
• Space – This area includes a small exhibit about space travel, and the large Planetarium, in which 4-6 demonstrations are given daily.
• Live Science Zone – Visitors can watch live shows, join in debates, try the hands-on exploration stations or keep updated in news and views.

At-Bristol is housed in a former railway goods shed, which was renovated to house the centre. The renovations included the addition of a large glass atrium to the North of the building, and stainless-steel sphere to the south, housing the planetarium. The architect behind the renovation was Chris Wilkinson.

An interesting feature of the building is the eutectic tank, which is a 10 metres (33 ft) high transparent tube filled with thousands of balls containing eutectic salts. As the temperature within the building rises, the crystals within the balls melt, taking in the heat and cooling the building. As the building cools, the salts crystallise again, giving out heat. In this way, the tank helps keep the temperature within the centre constant.

Wildwalk-At-Bristol

The first part of the botanical house in Wildwalk-At-Bristol; Plants on Land

Insects; one of the exhibits in Wildwalk-At-Bristol

Wildwalk was an Ecology Science centre, which contained two artificial rainforests, aquariums, hands-on exhibits, and live animal exhibits.

The centre comprised a large building (previously a lead-works building) with a ‘living rainforest’ attached to the southern side, and was designed by Michael Hopkins & Partners.

The centre housed a large number of animals, including butterflies, crabs, chameleons, frogs, finches, partridges, piranhas, seahorses, scorpions, snakes, spiders, tarantulas, triggerfish: in total over 150 species from all major animal groups.

The botanical house was split into two distinct sections: Plants on Land, which traced the development of plants from simple mosses through to complex flowering plants; and Tropical Forests, which showcased plants from tropical continents, including a cycad which produced a rare, bright red cone 45 cm (18 in) tall and 80 cm (31 in) in circumference in 2003.

Following Wildwalk's closure, all animals and plants were re-homed to other zoos and natural history venues. Additionally, some elements of the exhibits from Wildwalk have been incorporated into Explore.

IMAX-At-Bristol

Housed in the same building as Wildwalk, the IMAX theatre was the first of the three At-Bristol attractions to open, on 20 April 2000.

Since opening, the theatre received over 1.1 million visitors, and screened 70 films.

The longest running film, and thus that with the highest attendance figures, was Cyberworld 3D.

Closure of Wildwalk and IMAX

Wildwalk-At-Bristol and the IMAX Theatre from the outside. The large translucent canopy was the roof of the botanical house

Since opening, At-Bristol had an annual operating deficit of around £1.5 million to be filled by fundraising. Though the charity had no problems securing short term funds and grants to cover this when the centre was set up, enabling them to run the three attractions for just over six years, by 2005/2006 most of these had either decreased greatly or ended altogether.

This left only two options: close the whole centre, or close Wildwalk and IMAX, enabling existing funds to be channelled exclusively to Explore. As Explore was most popular with visitors, whereas Wildwalk and the IMAX theatre were most expensive to run, it was decided that the second option was viable, and in this way Explore could become financially viable in the future.

For these reasons, Wildwalk and the IMAX theatre closed for the last time on Saturday, 31 March 2007, making 45 people redundant.

The Regional Development Agency worked alongside Bristol City Council to find new uses for the buildings. The University of the West of England expressed an interest in taking over the buildings to use for public outreach work with schools.

In April 2008 it was announced that the Wildwalk building was to be converted into an aquarium and that the IMAX will be used to show nature and wildlife films. The £4 million plan by Newquay firm Blue Reef Aquarium, intended to provide a site for tropical marine and freshwater creatures, which opened in October 2009.

External links

• Official At-Bristol Site
• The Exploratory (archive site)
• Director of At-Bristol's response to a critical article in Nature (original article is only available on pay or subscription)