The Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas is planning a major expansion that will double its exhibition space, adding a sprawling outdoor science area where visitors can explore the natural world through hands-on experiments and interactive exhibits.

Described as a “living laboratory,” the new outdoor space will encourage visitors to explore and understand the natural world through immersive, hands-on experiences, living landscapes, and large-scale experiments that would be impossible to re-create indoors, they say in a release.

The new outdoor area at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science will include plenty of shade trees and other vegetation.Image courtesy of Perot Museum of Nature and Science

The ambitious transformation plan also includes a reimagined museum entrance and lobby; enhanced educational, dining, and event spaces; an on-site parking garage; and infrastructure improvements.

The approximately four-acre transformation is expected to accommodate an additional 400,000 guests each year.

The project will be funded through the museum’s $185 million Curiosity Unbound campaign ($135 million of which has been raised to date). The fund also supports the Museum’s endowment and funding for programs and community engagement.

The planned expansion at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science will include a large outdoor area and parking garage.Image courtesy of Perot Museum of Nature and Science

“This transformative project builds on the Perot Museum’s essential work by enhancing our presentation of the natural world and redefining how people engage with science,” said Dr. Linda Silver, Eugene McDermott chief executive officer of the Perot Museum, in a statement.

“By creating new opportunities to explore and interact with the forces of nature, we aim to make science education more immediate, more welcoming, and more consequential to people’s lives. Our goal is to build curiosity and confidence, and to help people feel that science is for them — whether that inspires a future career in STEM or a lifelong curiosity about the world and how it works.”

The outdoor expansion will replace some surface parking downtown, creating new green space in the center of Dallas. The change will "strengthen connections among the museum, Victory Park, Klyde Warren Park, the Dallas Arts District and the broader downtown corridor," the museum says in the release.

Once complete, the outdoor museum experience will unfold through interconnected zones spanning 60,000 square feet with approximately 25 large-scale exhibits and 40 learning touch points on display. The landscape itself — with extensive shade trees, native plantings, a pollinator habitat, and water features demonstrating biodiversity and ecological systems — is key to the science experience. Explorers will feel the forces of nature, walk through powerful wind gusts, build water pressure to send a geyser skyward, investigate how moving water shapes a landscape, and witness a fire tornado, to name a few things.

The new outdoor area at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science will include interactive elements including a fire tornado.Image courtesy of Perot Museum of Nature and Science

Other experiences include a cloud maze, a lightning and thunder pavilion, and a giant water vortex. More details will be announced in the future.

The museum plans to break ground on the project in early 2027, with the goal of opening to the public in late 2028.