The Forgelands Aquarium

The Forgelands Aquarium is the planned companion to the Natural History Museum of Biomes, devoted entirely to environments that can only be experienced underwater: warm and cold oceans, coral reefs, kelp forests, frozen seas, and the lightless deep.

Purpose

The oceans are the least documented territory in these Archives, which is an embarrassment the Aquarium is designed to correct. Planned exhibits include a walk-through coral reef tunnel, a kelp forest column rising the full interior height of the building, a frozen ocean gallery viewed from beneath the ice, and a darkened trench wing for the deep-water exhibits, lit only by what lives there.

Site

The shortlisted site is the coastline south of Scalloped Gulch, where a natural bay would let part of the complex be built into open ocean rather than simulated indoors. The bay's existing reef would become the only exhibit in the building that was not built at all, which the design brief considers the highest possible standard for the rest.

Engineering

Water control at scale is the defining technical problem. Test builds will trial sectioned tanks with concealed drainage so individual exhibits can be drained and rebuilt without flooding the galleries. Glass tonnage estimates have been forwarded to the Tortuga Foundry, which responded with a number and no commentary.

Field Notes

One exhibit remains undecided. Whether to house an elder guardian — and what it would mean to keep one — is a question the project has formally deferred. The Archives note that deferral is not the same as answering no.