Having outgrown its previous facility, the Children's Museum and Theatre of Maine tasked Bruner/Cott Architects with designing a playful, colorful façade to celebrate the heritage and natural landscape of Thompson’s Point and engage the riverfront.

In creating the building form, the architects studied the Point’s historic brick structures to reproduce the proportions, rhythm and fenestration pattern in the design.

Located along the Fore River, west of downtown Portland, steel cross-bracing references the site’s industrial and shipping heritage. The braces are exposed in the main gathering and exhibit spaces and provide seismic force resistance.
A proportion of the enclosure is glass curtainwall with the majority of the cladding made of aluminum tiles.

"Comprised of painted metal shingles, the exterior boasts a playful, bold pattern inspired by the patterns of Maine’s regional ecosystem," says Jason Forney, FAIA, partner and principal at Bruner/Cott Architects. The tiles are predominantly Cityscape and Weathered Zinc, with strategical pops of Slate Blue Steel and Stone White.

The tiles appear to shift from cream to mottled grays, with splashes of sea/sky-blue.