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“I can see that this museum has been built by the work of love."
- Albert Einstein (while visiting the Museum with his wife in 1931)
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In less than four years the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History will turn 100 years old. To ensure that the Museum continues to serve our community’s needs for generations to come, our trustees and staff developed a long term Strategic Plan, including a plan for the physical renewal of our campus. The Museum’s Master Plan is still evolving as we go through the process of developing a plan that will best fit the needs of the Museum and the community it serves. Before deveping the Master Plan, the Museum examined what is needed to serve its community for generations to come. All of our planning has been based on our Mission and Guiding Principles.
MISSION: To inspire a thirst for discovery and a passion for the natural world.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
1. Inspiring an Awe for Nature and a Thirst for Discovery
The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History aims to spark curiosity and ignite a passion for nature. We strive to expand our understanding of the natural world, share the process of discovery, and communicate the interconnectedness of all species.
The spirit of discovery drives our research, exhibits, and educational programs. We encourage involvement by making science fun and accessible, inspiring our audiences to explore the vast mysteries of nature.
2. Promoting Sustainability
The Museum promotes the preservation of the Earth's natural systems as an urgent priority and fosters a sense of collective responsibility, necessary for maintaining biodiversity and for the well-being of our own species.
We embrace sustainability as a critical element in all we do. We recognize that society's long term success requires an understanding and respect for nature's limits, and we strive to lead by example, illuminating the connections between research, policy and personal responsibility.
3. Connecting Our Communities
The Museum is a community resource and a welcoming, accessible center for community engagement. We use the full range of the human experience to reach and connect people of all ages and backgrounds, transcending geographic, economic, and cultural boundaries.
We pursue a broad web of relationships and partnerships to facilitate communication and mutual understanding, leveraging our resources and technology to bring the Museum into the lives of the widest possible range of professional and community groups.
A MUSEUM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Mission and Program: Inspiring a Passion for the Natural World
 The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History is recognized far beyond the boundaries of its community. Locally, it is beloved for its charming campus of Spanish Colonial Revival style architecture set in a beautiful streamside oak woodland. Regionally, nationally, and internationally, the Museum is known for its outstanding collections and research accomplishments, its superb educational programs, and its creative public programs. In recent decades, the Museum earned additional recognition for it Ty Warner Sea Center, an innovative branch facility on Stearns Wharf that offers education on the richness and fragility of marine environments to a broad audience.
Staff and trustees have devoted much effort to thinking about the Museum’s direction and development in its second century. Beloved by the community, the Museum treasures its historic roots but recognizes that it needs to respond to the needs and challenges of a dramatically changing natural world and the human place in it. Responding to the needs of our time, the Museum pursues its mission of inspiring a passion for the natural world by:
 Expanding the frontiers of our knowledge – We pursue highest quality research focused on a better understanding of the living things and ecological systems in our region within a worldwide context, on strategies for protecting and restoring endangered and degraded habitats, and on an appreciation of the nature and diversity of human cultures and their relationships to the environment.
- Preserving an archive of our natural heritage – We continue to build an irreplaceable archive of nature that preserves examples of living organisms through time not only for the appreciation of future generations but also as an essential foundation of the research we and colleagues around the world conduct.
- Delivering education that changes lives – We offer focused and powerful educational programs and exhibits for children and lifelong learners, designed to meet audience interests and needs. Our programs translate the science we and others do into effective public knowledge as we strive to produce scientifically literate citizens who are competitive in a globalized world, who understand and love nature, and who appreciate the consequences of their actions on the environment.
 Addressing issues that matter in our daily lives – Our research, education, and public programs provide unbiased information regarding issues of consequence in our lives, and we provide a forum for community dialogue on environmental issues and policies that help in the search for common ground.
- Connecting our communities – We are a center of the community and seek to connect with all segments to serve their diverse needs. We promote a web of relationships and partnerships that advance the common good.
- Maintaining unity of purpose – We optimize the use of our resources through the highest level of integration between our programs and physical, intellectual, and social assets in the service of our common mission and vision.
THE MUSEUM OF SANTA BARBARA
 Our facilities, including the Mission Canyon and Sea Center campuses, provide not only the physical setting for the implementation of the Museum’s programs; they are designed to facilitate and support these programs and are a material expression of the Museum’s mission and vision.
The Master Plan aims at revitalizing the Museum’s physical facilities and grounds so that they embody the essence of Santa Barbara as a place and community and establish leadership as a museum of natural history for the 21st century. In this sense, the architecture and setting of our facilities will strive to incorporate the following principles:
- A sense of place – The design and construction of our buildings and their setting in the surrounding environment will convey a sense of place; that is, they will incorporate and communicate the unique environmental, cultural, and historic character of our community and the region.
- Integration with nature – Our buildings will be respectful of the natural setting in which they are sited and will be designed to facilitate a connection with the outdoors for their occupants and users.
- Environmental conservation – In revitalizing our facilities, we will take every opportunity to restore natural habitats that have been compromised in previous decades and conserve open land for future generations.
- Models of sustainability – Our facilities will incorporate the highest level of sustainability in design, construction, and long term operation and will be models of sustainable building in the community.
- Embrace of history – Our revitalized facility will rehabilitate and protect the core historical elements of our architecture and exhibits and preserves them as part of our lasting legacy.
- An intimate experience – Embodying the uniqueness of Santa Barbara, and cognizant of our location in a residential neighborhood, we embrace the human and intimate scale of our architectural spaces as part of our distinctive character as a museum and our role in the community.
- A center of the community – Our buildings and grounds will be designed to support and communicate our role in facilitating human connections throughout the community. The revitalized facility and campus will be inviting and accessible to all.
Ultimately, the Museum’s programs and activities as well as the physical infrastructure supporting them are driven by the insight of Senegalese ecologist Baba Dioum who said: “In the end we will conserve only what we love; we love only what we understand; we will understand only what we are taught.”
FROM GOOD TO GREAT: A VISION FOR THE FUTURE
The efforts to plan for the physical renewal of the Museum’s Mission Canyon campus are driven by the recognition of long term programmatic needs, guided by our Mission and Guiding Principles, and they comply with a City of Santa Barbara mandate.
In developing our vision we have identified the following goals we hope to achieve with our Master Plan.
- restore the riparian corridor along Mission Creek
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See a map to the
Vision of Improvements
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- restore, conserve, and manage the woodland along Mission Creek
- rehabilitate and restore the historic architectural core
- manage storm water runoff from the site into Mission Creek
- achieve LEED Platinum standard
- deepen and integrate the Museum experience with nature
- improve the education facilities
- ensure the long term preservation of our irreplaceable archive of nature
- upgrade the research facility to state-of-the-art
- upgrade the buildings to comply with codes and professional museum standards
- improve visitor amenities
- simplify visitor circulation and provide universal access
- reduce vehicular traffic impact on neighborhood
- create a safe pedestrian corridor
- provide better fire protection for the Museum and the neighborhood
 Read more about the Museum’s Master Plan
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