Statue of Liberty Museum
New York City
Awards of Merit

Owner: National Park Service and Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation
Lead Design Firm: FXCollaborative
General Contractor: Phelps Construction
Structural Engineer: DeSimone Consulting Engineers
MEP Engineer: Kohler Ronan
Civil, Environmental and Site Engineer: Langan
Concrete Contractor: Steven Lombardi Construction Co.

The Statue of Liberty’s 4.4 million annual visitors have gained a new 26,000-sq-ft museum with two galleries, an educational theater and a viewing platform to take in Manhattan’s skyline. It complements a museum within the statue’s base that has had strictly limited access after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The design uses cast-in-place concrete for the elevated deck and to frame the plaza, stairs and ramps, while tapping precast concrete for the facade—which doubles as shear walls—and steel framing to create eight different slopes for the green roof and viewing platform. The green roof’s native meadow grasses form a natural habitat, which along with bird-safe glass helped the project target LEED Gold—and shaped what one judge called a perfectly blended modesty in the design.

The museum also won honors for safety excellence, recognizing the difficult conditions on Liberty Island that required barges and a temporary dock for materials delivery. The team also faced challenges from reclaimed soils and abandoned sea walls. Employees were trained on the logistics of working on a building that’s as close as 10 ft from the water.

The project team had no lost time accidents and logged an OSHA recordable incident rate of zero across 174,400 worker hours, thanks in part to a comprehensive preconstruction and project safety plan.

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