Immersive Spatial Experience
From the first visit to the museum, we noticed that the museum was not using the beautiful architecture in the most immersive ways- the space and exhibition were not supporting each other to reinforce the content and visitor experience. In response, we set off to create a design that would utilize the full potential of the space.
Stage 1: Projection
Our group wanted to tackle the passive experience of current museum. Most of the exhibition was done through visuals, text and through glass barriers. After a discussion, we decided to explore the projection of the existing architecture. This would allow for fully immersive experiences.
Stage 2: Architectural Intervention
With botany hall as our main design focus, we began measuring the existing architecture of the hall and draft the floorplan. We thought about changing the level of the floor to distinguish the existing botany hall exhibition and the new deep time walk experience we were designing. We thought about circular tracks that would control the circulation of the room. The outside of the track would be the existing plant diorama, the track would be the deep time walk and the center would the reflection and collection interaction. This all made sense conceptually, however, we weren’t considering social interaction. Through faculty feedback, we asked, ‘how would people go through the track to reach the center without disrupting the person who is already doing the deep time walk? How would the pacing be controlled? would we create the bottleneck?’ We had to revisit the spatial immersive design through architectural intervention.
Stage 3: Laying out Spatial Diagrams
While the conceptual design of space was developing, some of the team members worked on the content of the deep time walk. Upon discussing ideas and research, we gravitated towards how easy and simple the deep times were laid out through separate segments of periods. It was an effective way to convey the content: we landed on our form, series of circles on the floor.
Stage 4: Anthropocene
Figuring out the grand finale of the experience was a tricky part of our design. We valued the narrative of Anthropocene and hoped to related this back to the collection journey and plants. At the same time, we did not want this to be overtly one-sided, political or overpowering the rest of the experience. From one of the discussions, we landed on the idea of shifting the projection from the ground (plants) to the wall (human eye level) for the Anthropocene. The visitor would see the impact of humans in more immersive, private and closed off area- safe for contemplation and reflection. We thought the more participatory experience would be appropriate as a metaphor for human impact and roles on the plants.
