Gallery 201

How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand
A typology of change describes the renewal/replacement cycles for different parts of a building:
Site
Structure
Skin
Services
Scenery
Stuff
In a Building. . .

In a Theater. . .
Ultimately, the purpose of the theater is to provide a platform for the presentation of a story.

In a Museum. . .
The spaces and galleries of a museum are a platform to support the experiences of the visitor.
Programs provide the script, the content and the conversation.
The action is provided by people – the staff, volunteers and most importantly the visitors.

People with people
When visitors are led by a live person facilitator.
Programs. . .

People with stuff
How we depend on stuff to do the facilitation.
Exhibits. . .

Programs and exhibitions
can be inextricable partners.
When the planning for each is done simultaneously, they are able to each serve multiple purposes and support each other.

The Children’s Museum of Utah has expanded and become Discovery Gateway
moving to a new facility triple our current size,
developing our exhibits and
increasing and improving our programming.

Programming Goals:
Flexible , ever-changing programming
Visitors shape the activity (i.e. open-ended) ,
Encourage interaction between people

Theory:
Understanding our programming goals and defining our opening scenario of programs, we can then set out to create exhibits that can support the needs of those programs.
Then we can look back at the exhibit we have created and come up with more programs that could be supported by the same platform.

The Challenge
The First case study:
We began with what we wanted to do and the kinds of activity we wanted to encourage.
We then came up with ways to support those activities.

Size: 100 lf (about 1000 sf) Development: 7 weeks Budget: less than $500 Knock your Socks Off!

The Studio
Goal: To create the programming, and the spaces to support that programming, where visitors can:
Use open-ended challenges and projects to solve problems and/or explore (ask “What can I do with this?”)
Engage in conversations with other visitors and across generations, or through interaction with visiting professionals.
Do something different each time they come. (i.e. flexible)

How we are doing it:
Provide a variety of tools around the perimeter for visitors to use as they participate in regularly changing projects, or pursue un-facilitated open-ended activities.
Shake Table
Magnets
Wind Tunnel
Light Table
Mirrors
Experiment Wall
Wentzscope
Turntable

Things we must watch out for as we move forward:
Manage schedule carefully.
Work will always expand to fill the time.
Program and exhibit development take different amounts of time. Schedules have to be re-aligned regularly.
Guard your money.
Flexibility is expensive.
Keep everyone on track.
Folks hold off work waiting for input from others, while the others waiting to respond to the work.

Things we must watch out for as we move forward:
Get participation from as many disciplines as possible.
Include everyone, but watch for times to back off and let folks be responsible and do what they are good at.
Staff excited to use a space that is truly theirs.
Everyone feels like they really helped build it – because they did.

Some Observations
When we actively plan for what people will do in a space, it becomes exciting and dynamic.
Galleries do change quickly and often.

Gallery 201

by joannafisher on Apr 11, 2011

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Gallery 201 — Presentation Transcript