The LAB, Children’s Science Center, Reston VA – June 2015

The LAB is the first public experience opened by the Children’s Science Center, which is the first interactive STEM destination in Northern Virginia.

The Lab is composed of four spaces which include the Experiment Bar programmatic space; a tinkering space known as the Tinker Shop; an exhibition space called the Inspiration Hub; and an early learner area called the Discovery Zone. All spaces are designed for changing exhibitry and are completely flexible while still being separately themed.

Unique project factors: The LAB is located in a family-friendly, upscale suburban mall. This context informed both the design standards as well as the operating planning. The LAB has been a great success since its launch over the summer.

 Science Basics and Our Bodies, Konya Science Center, Konya Turkey – July 2015

The Konya Science Center marks Turkey’s first truly large-scale interactive informal learning experience. As the first institution completed under the science center initiative being lead by Turkey’s national science research organization, TUBITAK, the new science center is intended to be a model for other municipalities in the country as they develop their own science centers.

Unique project factors: This science center needed to reflect its local community and regional needs, but, as a national model, it also needed to attract other municipalities to draw from its example. These factors impacted the overall design and led to a project with community-based and national outcomes.

CREATE!, Arizona Science Center, Phoenix, AZ – September 2015

CREATE! was designed to support local and regional communities of makers, designers, artists, and engineers. CREATE! provides safe starting points for new participants while also being a resource for established makers and designers who want to explore new ideas and share their knowledge with others.

Unique project factors: CREATE! is housed in an existing building adjacent to the Arizona Science Center, and though there is considerable overlap, CREATE! has its own identity and draws its own audience. In addition, with the space, the design and planning needed to consider the full novice-to-expert spectrum while also partnering deeply with like-minded community resources.

To see the full Fast Company review click here

ALCHEMY studio was hired to work with the staff of the Cooper Hewitt to develop and prototype the experiences in the Process Lab and test how these would work within both the operating parameters of the museum and the overall design architecture. Activities found in the Process Lab were developed from a series of workshops with staff followed by prototyping with potential visitors. Activities were developed for both physical interactives as well as media platforms.

The Process Lab places visitors in the role of designer by inviting them into the design process itself: observing and identifying design challenges; brainstorming creative solutions; making models and prototypes; and testing new ideas.

Activities include a central collaborative “lightscape” that lets visitors create shape, shadow, and color effects. Visitors also have the chance to create a design mash-up: making up a new product by combining two items from their bags – or by including a random oject. Visitors also improve existing designs, comment on others’ design choices, and add to a design talkback board.

The Process Lab has been drawing attention and praise for the creative, open-ended ways it invites visitors to take on the role of designer, engage with collections objects, and spiral through the design process itself.

As part of our discussions, we came across an interesting video done by a GoPro video owner – it shows what goes on when you run your dishwasher. Watch below:

This video got us thinking about how everyday technologies that our visitors adopt or use can be co-opted to suggest and foster inquiry experiences in their lives and at museums. Let’s just take the GoPro camera system, for example. Here, we have a rugged, video data collection system that anyone can use. Imagine creating an experience where visitors are prompted to shoot the mysterious goings-on in neighborhood locales, or shoot video of places they can’t actually see, providing perspectives that one often doesn’t think about. This could be at home or even within a museum.

We believe we should be fostering ideas about how we might take new technologies that people are adopting and twist them into interesting new tools for investigating the world.

This seems like a creative way to think about and innovate toward some new experiences for museums, science centers, children’s museums, and other places.

Now that you’ve seen what’s happening inside a dishwasher, what else do you want to see? How might you use an everyday technology in a new way?

In addition if you are interested in exploring the subject further register for the SEGD Exhibition & Experience Design Workshop being held August 21 – 22 in Washington DC. Wayne and others will be speaking at it.

Enjoy!

Clearly, as indicated by the video (we’re sure the photographs only hint at the scene inside), the impact of these experiences is pretty special. As we have blogged about before, the exploration of infinity seems to fascinate people.

His work got us wondering about how the concept could be used to create similarly magical experiences about other subjects in ways that might be more impactful than a media piece.  Ideas that have come to mind include the inside of a cell, a diorama of a nature scene, perhaps even the subatomic world, another planetary surface… or even a mathematical theorem.

His experiences are an example of how some of the most age-old exhibition techniques can be used to great effect – perhaps even more so in the context of our digital world.

What does this technique make you think of? Where does your imagination go?

So, last week over 400 people attended the Science Centre World Summit in Mechlen, Belgium. The conference was hosted primarily by Technopolis with a pre-workshop and reception at the Natural History Museum of Belgium in Brussels. Both institutions did a wonderful job. ALCHEMY studio exhibited in the tradeshow (see the picture of the King of Belgium signing the Technopolis guest book in front of the ALCHEMY studio booth)

and participated in the CEO Forum before the conference as well as attended many sessions – along with drinking a lot of Belgian beer.

Over those beers, there was a lot of conversation, discussion and thinking on science centres and science museums. Here are a few of the interesting conversation threads we were part of or observed.

What Are We About?

The conference planners worked hard to bring in outside experts in the areas of active scientific research, technologists, media and forward-looking educators to engage with the attendees about the role and direction of science centers in the future. Ideas floated included that science centers need to become more involved in presenting actual research and engaging with technology as a part of (not a replacement for) more phenomenological experiences and break down the age personification that we are only for the young.

But Can We?

Joined with this discussion, though, is how will this pay the bills? While certain countries‘ governments might support their centers and thus free up resources to explore new modes/content or processes more easily, the organizations in some countries are heavily connected to earned revenue and/or directly connected to a learning curriculum. In these cases, focusing experiences on things such as the latest discovery and research such as the remnants of the big bang (research that was announced during the summit) might not bring in the audience or connect as easily with what schools want and need.

The Evolving State of Revenue

Meanwhile, in countries that have a history of philanthropic giving to institutions such as science centers, dramatic shifts are occurring. Younger funders are moving away from cultural gifts and moving toward social movements and efforts. Funders want to be far more hands on, at times wanting to be a part of the team. Meanwhile, organizations such as NSF in the United States are moving entirely to research support – removing a source of capital for just getting programming done.

Future Content

There was good discussion on topics and areas that might see more concentrations of programming. One is the area of data, big data, and what data can tell us. Increasingly, this will be information that the public will need to understand. Another discussion of coming focus is on the outdoors – meaning that, as we move into the future, we’ll need to shift more attention toward the connection we have with planet and the crises we seem to inevitably face in areas of food, energy, and climate change. This focus on the planet, its health, and human survival will only deepen.

Speciation

Finally with enlightening and varied philosophical approaches from the Wild Center in the Adirondacks in New York to the Continium – Discovery Centre in the Netherlands, it seems that science centers may be undergoing an evolution of “speciation” and fundamental changes that even more match the institutions to the communities they find themselves in. In our past, and to some extent in countries where science centers are merging, there has been a focus on just copying experiences and also duplicating operations and approaches. However, it’s clear that whether its changing opening hours in the winter, including culturally traditional non-Western approaches to science subjects, running community businesses, or having pubs and nightclubs within your institution, the direction is to becomes a more fully functional part of one’s community. BUT at the same time, this means that what a science center is may be dramatically different from one community to another.

Perhaps in the not so distant future there will no longer be a summit of “science centres” but rather a summit of science “community centres.”

Which of these trends rings true for you? What other forces do you see shaping the future of our field?

The first is an installation called Contact, created by Felix Faire as a research project at the Interactive Architecture Lab – Bartlett School of Architecture and now on display at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in the exhibition Sensing Spaces.

What Felix has done is create a way to make any hard surface into an interface. Certainly this piece will find its way into more museums but perhaps even more interesting is the idea of using this technique to make any surface a controller. In a museum setting, this might be a graphic panel, a piece of exhibition armature, or a vitrine. What is interesting is thinking about removing the need or ubiquity of the physical “interactive” control or screen.

You can watch a vidoe of how Contact was made here.

The second example is a new lighting system from Codha called Crypsis. Take a look.

Using a system like this would certainly alter significantly the way we may light artifacts and other items in display cases. In fact, this is the first way this system will be tested. In addition, this offers a unique opportunity for museums to have visitors experiment with light and could also be incorporated into physics exhibits or even maker spaces.

The final interesting piece is the mirror fence concept by  Alyson Shotz.

Simple in its execution and an interesting work of art, the concept of the mirror fence seems like it could be useful in any situation where you need to create a separation of space but you don’t want that operation to be detectible from a visitor’s perspective. For us, zoo enclosures came to mind immediately. Where could use imagine using a mirror fence?

We’d love to hear from you about what ideas these examples sparked for you.

A very interesting example of this is the piece “Your Line or Mine,” created by the firm Moniker for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

What we see as strong elements of this piece include the simplicity and the low threshold for visitors to actually engage in the creative work. In addition, it’s not just a blank piece of paper. The creative opportunity has some definition, thus providing a “skeleton” to spark and structure one’s creativity. Sometimes a blank piece of paper can be intimidating and confusing, while a “seed” or “scaffold” can get the process flowing.

Technologically, it’s very easy, simple, and straightforward to insert one’s part of the animation into the collective public-sourced piece.

Finally, what is incredibly powerful is that the collective piece is as much the focus of the experience as is the act of adding one’s creative addition to the animation.

We believe this experience has some important lessons as we all explore experiences where the raison d’être is crowd-sourced, visitor-created content rather than experiences created by museum staff or curators.

We are excited to adapt some aspects of this experience to subjects other than animation.

How does the experience inspire you? We look forward to hearing your thoughts about other experiences that reflect important points about visitor-generated pieces.

Well, while not an optical illusion but certainly as much fun, this tourist attraction at the VVT’s All-Russia Exhibition Center in Moscow piqued our interest and made us smile.

The experience is powerful and fun – and totally changes your perspective. Literally turning your world upside down is a great way to get people to observe and think differently.

As one begins to develop and design an exhibition, a strong design and development step is to do what this house does: take the subject and turn it on its head.

This way of thinking could suggest new and innovative ways to explore and present any subject.

Have you seen other “upside-down” worlds? What kinds of experiences have turned your world on its head?

A special note is that this month’s ASTC’s Dimensions focuses on exhibits with insightful articles from across the industry. You can access the newsletter here if you are an ASTC member. Of particular note, Wayne LaBar Principal of ALCHEMY studio, wrote the lead article, which explores trends for future exhibits. Click here to see a pdf of the article.