Stenomuseet and Botanisk Have

After the initial space study of Aros, the Public Library and Musikhuset, we did a similar study of Stenomusseet and Botanisk Have, and made an assignment which included the summary of the study.

The assignment is appended

Steno Museum

The Medical History Exhibition

This exhibition is, in contrary to the history of science exhibition, a much more realistic experience. The reason for this is, that this exhibition consists of real life scenarios, which most of the visitors can relate to, as a part of their daily life. For instance, most of us can relate to a medical clinic, a dental clinic or a pharmacy, and we therefore posses a great resource for perspective. The exhibition, as a space, is wide open, with only a few room dividers in the middle, where each of the individual exhibitions is placed up against the outer wall. This composition of this exhibition allows for a counter-clockwise path through the room, since the visitors are prohibited from both interacting with, and walking into the exhibitions. The real strength of the Medical History Exhibition as a space, is the visualisation of the history through scenarios which resembles real life situations. Though, the lack of interaction possibilities in this exhibition is a drawback.

History of Science

The left part of Steno Museum focuses on the history of science. It is two floors, with a large open space in the middle of the second floor, combining the rooms and making it feel like one room. This is further enhanced by the large telescope which goes through “the ceiling” of the first floor and up into the second.

The second floor focuses on the early history of science, and brings a clear way through the exhibition, while moving around the gap in the floor. The trail is constructed of small walls, with posters describing the different time age and distinct scientific discoveries from the time. There are several small interactional installations, but they often aren't directly transferable to the science presented on the posters. The first floor has the large telescope in the center instead of the gap, but again affords for a clear train around the exhibition. In both floors a lof of the actual scientific instruments are not interactional, since the instrument often is too fragile for children to play with or just touch. The different parts of the exhibition is often stand-alone, and doesn’t try to give a context and history like in the Medical History Exhibition.

Experience The Body Exhibition

This exhibition is the newest of those in the Steno Museum. It is targeted at teenagers, going through different aspects of their life, with a focus on their body. The room is very specially constructed, with different artifacts hanging from the ceiling, and curved walls. The artifacts from the ceiling represents manual machines and tools throughout the history of time, ending in modern automated machines like a washing machine. The walls are white and curved, and is producing an interesting and vivid environment. The space has many interactive elements, primarily screens you can interact with.

One of the great things about this exhibition was that it was very palpable, so that people can relate to it and create a much closer connection to the exhibition.

The Life Creation Exhibition

This exhibition is targeted at a young audience, who are in the learning phase of how mankind reproduce, what fertilization is, and how artificial insemination works. This space is very different from other spaces in the Steno Museum. There is a carpet on the floor, the light is dimmed, there is sound, and the acoustics are great. The room has a cosy characteristic, affording people to feel comfortable, hereby inviting them to explore the room. However the content/information of the room are somewhat abstract.

The Room of Epidemics

This room was very small, and newly updated with beautiful displays. The room explained how different sicknesses have evolved through time. There was no interaction in the room, but a video displayed something. The room was intelligently designed with a wall or an obstacle in the middle, forcing the visitor to go through the whole room in order to experience the whole thing. Also the walls are not going all the way towards the ceiling, but stops on the way, leaving out space to the neighbor room. This construction revealed some of the neighbor exhibition. It created an interesting experience, and a feeling that you did not just stand in a small room, but in a part of a bigger space.

The greenhouse in botanical garden

Mediterranean/Desert area

A part of the exhibition is different areas of the world, presented as how they would look, if they were visited today. These areas included eg. a mediterranean, a desert, a tropical, a mountain and Gran Canarian part. These parts of the exhibition should make the user feel like they was walking in the area, experiencing the different plants and herbs from these regions. The area can be explored by users, walking through small paths, touching and smelling the different types of plants and herbs. The main goal of the exhibition is to make the users aware of the different types of plants, how they look, where they are located around the world, and which differences it could have, the main purpose is to show regions and which plants are connected in different regions. It is not a goal to dig deep into the biological aspect of the plants and their nature, and how they have evolved, users should just experience and explore. Our guide (Line), told us that they wouldn’t like a lot of text in the area, making users stop, look and read. They wanted users to explore the area on their own. A flaw in the setup is that it doesn’t communicate the purpose very well, before we were told about it, we weren’t aware of the possibilities of taking one of the small paths (they looked like they were personnel only!), and that it was allowed to touch the different plants. The ability to touch and feel the plants gives a major impact to exploring the area, and is a large part of experiencing the space, and the possibilities in the space.

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The New Dome

The new dome is the primary area of the greenhouses. It is supposed to be the main building, with a new set of possibilities for users. The building is looking like a combination of a greenhouse and a dome, where the glasses are substituted with plastic material that can be filled with air, and change shape. As something new for the renovated dome, theres a high observations-post, where users through stairs can reach a high-point, and see everything (all the different plant types from above). Another thing is a small pond, which at launch will have piranhas, and support the different types of water plants. The area is rather large, and compared to the old greenhouse with “low”-ceiling, gives a more open space. As the space was unused besides the observation tower and the pond, at our visit, we could see a lot of possibilities and opportunities for the space. Our main drawback was that it was almost impossible for us to imagine, how the greenhouse would look and be like at the launch, since it was almost completely empty. This is both good and bad, since this gives a lot of freedom, using the space for whatever interaction we would like to do, but that wouldn’t make any sense, since we want the installation to support how the museum was planning to do the exhibition. At our visit there was a lot of talk relating the observations-post, as a perfect platform for doing an installation supporting the benefits giving from the perfect overview of everything happening in the dome.

How will our observations shape our future work?

As for now, we have not yet decided on the final space for our future work. There is an on-going debate in the group about opportunities and drawbacks within both the greenhouses and the Steno Museum. One of our current concerns is, that the two domes in the greenhouses at this point are far from what they will end up being, when the construction work has been completed. This makes it hard to address specific designs at either of these buildings at the moment. In contrast to this, we have identified great opportunities in the remaining greenhouses, since these spaces at the moment, are very undefined as museum spaces. Therefore, the possibilities for an implementation of interactive installations are great. Most importantly, we have identified a great diversity in spaces with respect to attractiveness. The more a story is being told at an installation, the more likely it is, that this installation will be attractive to look into. Therefore, we will put our focus on telling a story, no matter which space we will end up choosing.