Client: Climate Museum Launch Project, Canal St. & Broadway NYC
Client Need: To expansively reconsider museum design to align museum functions with a climate change concept.
Goal: To empower visitors to realize their social power and enable them to take Climate Action within a space that exudes inclusion, climate awareness, and multi-generational fun.
Section through Blue Residency Workshop, small activity spaces with yellow display walls, and foyer for Talking Circle Ampitheater.
Solution: The climate change museum brief transformed into a climate action field lab. The field lab's park format encourages through foot traffic and exemplifies transparency and inclusivity. The exhibition stratagy includes solely social programming and two-dimensional dispaly. Role models for climate action collaborating with artists and eachother continually produce exhibition content and directly engage the community. Residents live on site and work in open studios, complete with a community creativity space for including visitors as collaborators. The talking circle ampitheater hosts large talks and views of the entire park from within a symbolic megaphone roof structure. A commercial kitchen provides creative space for designing and cooking community barbecues inspired by exhibition content. Yellow curving walls intersect small activity zones allowing for display of print and digital supporting content.
Section through Residency Housing, Vehicle Based Project Garage and Gallery, Canal St., commercial kitchen, small activity spaces, and Talking Circle Amphitheater.
Why Climate Action and not Climate Change: (figure 3)
According to the Six Americas report on Climate Change, the one thing all my possible visitors have in common are values relating to collective social good. I set out to tackle the largest problems preventing people from acting through designing from a basis my audience can relate to.
Role Models as Exhibition: (Social-Digital-Physical Program Diagram)
By making the primary exhibition content role models interacting with the public, the content is primary ephemeral. A robust web presence publishes activities from the field lab. The web presence also increases accessibility to environmental information and activism groups.
Typical Daily Activity Schedule:
Visitors participate in an Eat the Invadors Barbeque, a social culinary experience about carbon sequestration. Inspired by the increase of invasive species after Huricane Sandy, field lab chefs set out to create a meal solely out of invasive species that lower biodiversity. With low biodiveristy, carbon sequestion potential decreses. Participants not only learn about invasive species in the New York City area, but also help lower the invasives population by eating them.To follow, Carbon Sequestration Soil Sample Dessert transforms a variety of soil compositions into delectable trifolds. The textural composition differences between the trifolds explores a spectrum of soils from poor to successful at containing carbon.
Part of the exhibition, We All Breathe the Same Air, this "gallery" focues on explaining carbon sequestration (a sollution for imporving our air).
John Rocket (Pedestrian Advocate) shares his thoughts on pedestrian safety at the Talking Circle Amphitheater. The presentation projection around him on the floor hosts multimedia content as well as live polling.
Kids play a tag-like game illustrating We All Breath the Same Air on the grass to the right. One girl has opened a can of stink, while other kids run around like airplanes to circulate the smell around. Other kids run around with air filters, trying to pull the stink out of the air. Supported by images of bad air days and air pollution happening, the game strives to communicate that emissions from one side of the world are experienced my people elsewhere. Near by, adults participate in a Climate Refugee Camp Brainstorm, hosted by the resident role-models. The brainstorm is meant to generate useful ideas while getting people to practice critical thinking on a specific climate issue. Through group activities such as this one, adults learn they are not alone in tackling climate issues and have opportunities to make friendships and build networks.
