The Carnegie Science Center is working on a master plan to "reinvent" the center, which is expected to include a major expansion project centered on ecology and the center's North Shore riverfront location.

Director Joanna Haas said the master plan is the outgrowth of an 18-month review of the services and programs offered through the center, which opened in 1991. Programming in four of the six areas on which the center will focus can be accommodated in its existing building. The proposed "eco experience" likely will require construction of major indoor and outdoor facilities, and SportsWorks will have to be relocated because of the extension of the light-rail system to the North Shore.

The Heinz Endowments, which has taken a special interest in Pittsburgh's riverfronts and ecology, has given the center a $250,000 planning grant. In two weeks, the center will meet with museum planners, ecologists and other experts to hear their ideas with a goal of having a formal proposal with projected costs and a design concept ready by the end of the year.

Ms. Haas said the center has been successful since it opened in 1991 -- it drew more than 600,000 visitors last year -- but that any science center has to review its programs regularly to keep up with the latest technology so it doesn't become stale.

"It's time to reinvent ourselves and make sure we are relevant, important and engaging," she said. "I think any exciting organization transforms itself regularly."

For its latest expansion attempt, the science center is taking an approach different from that taken in an unsuccessful effort five years ago.

At that time, under a different administration, the center held a design competition and hired world-renowned architect Jean Nouvel to design a $90 million addition. After concerns about escalating costs and how the space would be used, the center dropped that project in 2003.

This time, the center is determining what programs it wants to feature and develop, then designing the appropriate addition.

"I think the science center at that time didn't pay enough attention to what the programs would be," said Caren Glofelty, director of environmental programming for the Heinz Endowments. "I'm really impressed with the logical, smart approach Jo Haas is taking here. I think the science center is doing this in the right order now."

Programming is the key to the center's success, Ms. Haas said, and the driving force in planning for the future. The center intends to use more of its 13 acres of land for exhibit space.

"What do we believe will attract visitors? That's what's important," she said. "We're going to let content lead us. I don't know what the physical plant will look like when we're done because we haven't finalized the programming yet."

Ms. Haas said the six areas in which the center will concentrate include four that are already prominent there -- astronomy, curiosity, basic science and sports and body -- and two new areas -- robots and ecology and the rivers. Ms. Haas said she's particularly proud that robots, ecology and the rivers, and sports and body have strong local connections through universities, medical facilities and athletics.

"We've worked very hard to do both: respect and honor our legacy by maintaining areas such as the trains and the planetarium, and reflect our location and environment through robots and medicine and the eco-experience," Ms. Haas said.

Some of the changes in the existing areas already have begun. In astronomy, for example, the center in September opened its new $1.8 million Buhl Digital Dome, a high-definition projection system that allows the planetarium to quickly add new material such as ongoing space missions. SportsWorks is adding G-Force, a participatory exhibit where a bicycle rider pedals upside down through an 18-foot-tall loop.

"We're not asking the community to wait for this magic moment where we flip a switch and open everything all at once," Ms. Haas said. "It is a phased approach that we think we can deliver more successfully and more quickly."

Curiosity and basic science, mostly aimed at younger children and housed on the center's first and fourth floors, will continue to evolve.

Robotics and sports and body are an outgrowth of two of the center's most successful temporary exhibits and are prime examples of the partnerships the center wants to build with other local institutions.

"Robots," one of the center's early shows, and "Zap It Surgery," focusing on laser surgery and other high-tech medical procedures, are still touring the country.

Carnegie Mellon University helped to develop "Robots" while the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center worked with "Zap It."

The center is working with CMU's internationally known robotics program again to develop a permanent exhibit that would take up most of the center's second floor, except where the train display is located. It is expected to open next year.

That space had been set aside for temporary, traveling exhibits that have been used to attract repeat visitors to the facility. The center will continue to accommodate traveling exhibits, such as "Bodies ... The Exhibition," which gives a detailed look inside the human body. It opens in October.

But the center will rely more heavily on its own special events such as the New Year's Day MessFest, where patrons made mashed potatoes by launching potatoes against a wall, and the beach party that kicked off an Omnimax movie about the ocean.

The major changes will involve SportsWorks and the eco-experience.

When SportsWorks opened in 2001 in a former warehouse across North Shore Drive from the science center, officials knew it would be a temporary exhibit because Port Authority already was floating plans for a light-rail station there when it extended the system to the North Shore.

It has proven so successful that the center wants to move it closer to the main building and is negotiating a sales price with the authority that it hopes will provide enough money to build a new facility. It will work with UPMC and local sports teams to add new exhibits when it moves.

Ms. Haas said that relocation is part of the center's goal to put all its exhibits together near the riverfront. She would like to close North Short Drive as it passes through the center's property, but if that's not possible she wants to have all parking on the north side of North Shore, so patrons only have to cross the street one time to get to all exhibit areas.

The centerpiece of the expansion, though, will be the focus on ecology and the rivers. Ms. Glofelty said the Heinz Endowments already was looking for additional ways to use the area's riverfronts and involve the public with them when it heard about the science center's plans. A happy marriage was formed.

"They have just an amazing location there on the riverfront," Ms. Glofelty said. "They began to see that as they went through their review process and began thinking about incorporating that into exhibits.

"We said, 'Great. If that's the direction you want to go, we want to go there with you.' "

Although the details are still being developed, the expansion might include a green, environmentally friendly building and outdoor space.

Exhibits could include simulated fishing and kayaking; water quality and waste-water treatment; how the three rivers were formed; and the importance of the fourth river underground.

RiverQuest, the educational organization that runs river-based programs for school children on boats that dock next to the science center, will be a key partner on this project.

"I think their location on the water and focus on the river ... could become a tourist destination on its own," Ms. Glofelty said. "I think people who grow up in an urban environment tend to be afraid of water because they're always told to stay away from the river and it's smelly and dirty.

"What you've got is a whole generation of people who don't embrace the water, and we think we can help change that."

Ms. Haas said the center will spend the next eight months working up design and cost details so it can present a full project by the end of the year.

"We have a commitment to the rivers and our location really puts us in a position of prominence, maybe more than any other science center in the world," Ms. Haas said. "We have to do everything we can to take advantage of that."