Heritage Rehabilitation and Structural Upgrade to the Museum of Natural History-ph

Heritage Rehabilitation and Structural Upgrade to the Museum of Natural History

The former Department of Tourism building will soon be retrofitted to house a museum in what shall become Manila’s Museum Precinct. This pre-World War II neoclassical style former Department of Tourism Building built in 1930, will be transformed into the new Museum of Natural History. Across historic Agrifina Circle, sits its twin structure the former Department of Finance building which was recently converted and restored to house the Museum of the Filipino People.

The change of use and conversion of this structure from office use to a museum required that the beams, slabs and columns to be strengthened due to the increase in loading. The majority of columns were strengthened using the conventional concrete jacketing technique however the project consultant adopted FYFE Asia’s FRP Composite System to increase the flexural capacity of the slabs and shear capacity of the beams on all 6 level of this historic structure.

The strengthening works were completed in early 2015 with the architectural works to be completed in mid 2015. The new museum is set to host the 2015 APEC Summit in November 2015.