Washington, D.C., is a content-rich venue for the 2010 SEGD Conference + Expo.
With its vocabulary of granite and marble and limestone, carved letters and majestic sculptures, classical architecture and stately canopies of trees, Washington, D.C., tells a story.
There are many individual stories told within the walls of its museums, inside its art galleries, and on the stone tablets marking its memorials. But collectively, the city’s monumental features tell just one: the story of what it means to be American.
Restored, reinterpreted and remounted in 1996, the fourth-floor fossil halls at the American Museum of Natural History are home to many world-renowned specimens. New graphics help communicate new scientific thinking about evolution, and help visitors understand the practice of science. The Hall of Vertebrate Origins explains how early vertebrates came out of the oceans on to land. Specimens and models are hung overhead, with labels on railing beneath them. All exhibits in the main path can be taken apart with a hex wrench, useful for special events and dining occasions.
A new museum focusing on news, journalism and the role of the press in a free society needed a design that would keep pace with technology and the ever-changing nature of the news. It presents all of human history as, at a time, "news." Visitors can watch news broadcasts be prepared and recorded, are invited to write and edit news stories in interactive games and can air their news-related concerns at an ethics center. At the museum's entrance, a glass globe presents the names of prominent newspapers in their own typefaces. News-related quotations line the wall by the stairs.
The 11,000-square-foot Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History was created to celebrate life's great diversity and beauty. As well as focusing on living species, the exhibit also tells the story of mass global extinction, and how species are being lost at alarming rate through human activities. Located within a softly illuminated space are three main areas: The Spectrum of Life, the Rainforest and The Resource Center. The challenge was to explain an extensive story with different messages within a compressed space.
Celebrating 50 years of TV in Brazil and exploring viewer relationships with the medium in an environment that symbolizes and refers to the nature of media itself, this exhibit is completely media-driven, responds to the historic building, and can stand up to high projected attendance. The project uses the building as a canvas for the subject matter; it takes themes of reflection, windows, and visual perception and uses pools, portholes, and projections to symbolize the abstract themes.
This store design transmits the culture of Steuben through its appearance and educational videos, making it more accessible and creating a framework for continuing change. The designers changed the relationship between the object and the customer, inviting people to congregate around the circular display tables and experience the glass intimately, thus creating a museum-like educational experience in a retail environment. Flooded with outdoor light, the character of the room changes with each passing cloud.
This project challenged the designer to bring the diverse elements of a large corporate entity into focus by unifying stories of the science and industry of glassmaking with the museum's ongoing traditions of glass collecting and community involvement. The Glass Museum provides the broadest and most accessible history and experience on the subject in the world.
Linking the planetarium and the museum intellectually and architecturally while creating a seamless integration of the subject with its architecture was the design intent at the Rose Center for Earth and Space. The exhibit takes visitors on journeys through time, size, formation, and evolution, inspiring awe and the desire to learn more about the cosmos. The collaborative design process engaged architects, scientists, and educators with the design team to enrich the experience and generate special insights that are reflected the interpretive program.
