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A life-size indoor maze by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group is sure to delight its visitors at the National Building Museum in Washington, offering a glimpse into the upcoming BIG exhibition at the Museum in early 2015.

“The concept is simple: as you travel deeper into a maze, your path typically becomes more convoluted. What if we invert this scenario and create a maze that brings clarity and visual understanding upon reaching the heart of the labyrinth”, Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.

“This distinctive maze offers our visitors a chance to physically interact with the work of a cutting-edge, international design firm,” said Chase W. Rynd, executive director of the National Building Museum. “It will be a great framework for exploring the exhibition in a few months.”

Inspired by ancient labyrinths, gardens and hedge mazes of 17th – 18th-century Europe, and modern American corn mazes, the BIG Maze is located in the National Building Museum’s historic Great Hall. From outside, the maze’s cube-like form hides the final reveal behind its 20-foot-tall walls. On the inside, the walls slowly descend towards the center which concludes with a grand reveal—a 360 degree understanding of your path in and how to get out. The 57×57 feet installation of Baltic birch plywood is open from July 4th to September 1st, 2014.

The BIG Maze is generously sponsored by CoStar Group, Inc.; Clark Construction Group, LLC; DAVIS Construction; Glass Construction; Grunley Construction Company, Inc.; SIGAL Construction Corporation; GCS, Inc.; and The Home Depot Foundation. Additional support is provided by The American Institute of Architects and STUDIOS Architecture. In-kind support provided by ACECO, LLC; Robert Silman Associates; Cumming Construction Management; VJ Associates; Hargrove, Inc.; and Earthcam.

The BIG Exhibition opening in January 2015 will showcase around 90 projects that will grace each of the arches in the Grand Hall visible from ground floor and allowing for a closer view upstairs.

Collaborators
Contractors: Clark Construction, Davis, Glass Construction, GCS Inc., Grunley Construction, Sigal
Materials: Home Depot Foundation
Cost Estimation: Cumming, VJ Associates
Structural Engineering: Robert Silman Associates
Live-Streaming Multimedia: Earthcam
Support: The American Institute of Architects, STUDIOS Architecture

BIG Credit List
Partners-in-Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Kai-Uwe Bergmann
Project Leader: Chi-Chi Lin
Team: Ziad Shehab, Thea Gasseholm, Annette Miller

National Building Museum Credit List
Project Director: Cathy Crane Frankel
Master Carpenter: Chris Maclay
Team: Lily Feinberg, Mary Hendrickse, Sarah Leavitt, Jamee Telford, Vladimir Zabavskiy