Project A2: Form for Environments in Context Hybrid Exhibit Environments

STEP 1 l The Mattress Factory MuseumThe Mattress Factory consists of 3 buildings, the main building, Row House, and the Annex. I feel that the museum can be accessed as 3 different environments but also as a single cohesive unit. The intended audiences of the museum are pretty general including both since it shows a wide range of exhibits.

From observing the license plates in the parking lot and talking to a few people while at the museum, there seems to be both Pittsburgh residents and also outside visitors at the exhibits. However, I personally feel that the museum is designed more for young adults and people older since most of the artworks dont feel that they are designed for children. Unlike the Childrens Museum, the interaction and interactive cues in the Mattress Factory Museum feels a little less obvious and may not always be for hands-on and touching interactions but using other ways of creating new experiences.

The Mattress Factory Museum uses a variety of implicit methods to teach people about the exhibition such as creating the feeling for visitors to actually be a part of the artwork. Lighting, casting overlapping shadows, motion, and sound affects are also used to establish different moods in the different rooms and buildings of the museum and thus implicitly cause the audiences to feel a certain way.On the other hand, explicit learning opportunities include the use of signage throughout the museum buildings and also the gallery guide that was handed to us at the ticket counter.

The overall signage and handouts are pretty clear and easy to understand, and it also covers all the basic information about the different exhibits in each building and floor.Moving on, I organized my analysis into first examining the spaces, colors, materials, and interactions of each of the buildings, and then tying together the experience as a whole.Main BuildingThe main building contains a various of artists artworks located throughout the 2nd floor to the 4th floor, and the basement of the building.

The main building of the Mattress Factory Museum is mainly composed of large gallery space, where the space is clearly curated and artworks or installations are put on in display. The rooms are mainly large and the building consists of mostly permanent instalations. There are usually a sufficient amount of open space for people to walk around and it doesnt feel crowded even when there are some other visitors navigating through the same space.

The thresholds are mainly created through the use of change in rooms and elevation where it is clear that people have entered into a new environment after entering through into a different room or move to a different floor. The transitions are pretty clear since signages and labels are used and it is identifiable when one has moved into a new room that houses the works of a different artist due to not only the labels but also the style ad content of the artworks themselves.Since this building houses artworks by a various of artists, the color and materials throughout the entire building are inconsistent and specific to each instalation.

There is a variety of interactions created through the different artists artworks. For example, in Yayoi Kusamas rooms, visitors are surrounded by the poke-dot patterns and mirrors which makes them feel as if they are inside the artwork and being a part of the piece.Another example is James Turrells works, which light and the projection of color and shape is used to create a juxtaposition of the space, and actually touching the shape is required in order to find out if there is actually a hole in the wall or if it is due to perception that caused people to feel that a hole exists but it actually doesnt.

Something interesting related to the interactions of artworks in this building is the motion of physical touching or simply observing the art. I felt that it is sometimes unclear wether an art or installation can be touched or not and thus this cause me to wonder if there are things I missed out due to not noticing some of the interaction cues.Row HouseThe Mattress Factory Row House currently exhibits A Second Home by Dennis Maher which transforms the building into a mysterious wonderland.

It is a small building that contains 3 floors and the entire space for all 3 floors are used to create this doll house like exhibition. The spaces are arranged in a way that there are specific paths for visitors to walk through with the installations, architectural models, and artworks are usually on both sides. The space feels pretty cramped since visitors feel as if they are literally in the artwork and the pathways are pretty narrow.

Also, the pathways sometimes contain 2 or 3 stair steps so there is a slight change in elevation even when moving through a single floor.The thresholds are mostly subtle for this specific exhibit since the entire building is basically a piece of art work and the 3 floors definitely feel coherent to one another. The most obvious transitions that people go through is climbing up the stairs to a different floor as visitors have to open a door to the staircase, move up in elevation, and then open another door at the top of the staircase to enter into the environment again.

When navigating through a single floor, there are subtle thresholds as one move into another room or up and down on the pathway.The rooms in this building are vaguely noticeable due to the very dim lightly and how the different parts of exhibits occupy most of the wall space and space beside the pathway. Also, there are definitely areas that contain a lot of small details in the artworks, and a few places where a big structure occupies the entire area.

The materials used to create this exhibit contains architectural salvage, construction materials, antique furnishings, toys, architectural models, video projections, and audio. Mostly wood like materials are used and thus, the color scheme is mostly brown with spot colors once in a while. Also, video projects are used to project color onto a few installations.

The main interaction with this exhibit is to physically feel as if being in the art and navigating through the inside of the large artwork. The fact that it feels like one is navigating through a doll house provides visitors the experience of engaging in a different environment. In addition to this, there are also little projection of movement and holes or magnifying class throughout this exhibit that people can look through as if they are seeing a different environment within the doll house.

AnnexThe first floor of the annex feels like an old store front, with the floors above being residential spaces.Similar to the main building, the annex contains artworks by different artists. However, the space in the annex feels a lot smaller and the rooms are also smaller compared to those in the main building.

I felt that the size of the installations affect how big or small people feel about the space. For example, in the top floor, the paintings feels really big due to the fact that the rooms are small and thus the paintings covers up the majority of wall space. However, if these paintings were to be exhibited in the main building, they definitely wont feel as powerful due to the bigger room and wall space.

In the annex, most pieces have their own room, and thus visitors are able to focus on them instead of seeing a large glance of artworks at once. Also, some of the rooms feels like a part of the art itself as things like wall paper and painted doors caused the space to become a part of the art. For example the pink wall paper with some texture on it makes it feel like it is a background for the objects in the room.

Similar to the main building, thresholds are created through the change in elevation and entering into a different room. However, the rooms in the annex are sometimes not that clearly defined as well since they feel like a part of the art sometimes. Thus, this makes the environment of the annex feels as if it is a hybrid between the main building and the Row House both spacial wise and material wise.

The annex is very bright compared to the Row House and it contains a lot of windows. The colors varies depending on each artist but it is also clear when the artworks shirts to another artists work and there is a clear change in color scheme. For example, pastel colors are used in these room on the second floor but the paintings in the top floor all contain very bright colors with high saturation.

Moving onto the interactions in the annex, there is the push and pull couch, concrete big installation on the top floor which is meant to be touched, but overall the artworks in this building feels a little less physically interactive.Overall Key FindingsAfter navigating through all 3 buildings, I realized that there is a sense of nested environments throughout. The main building feels more like an actual museum exhibition space, the Row House feels like a house with space vaguely defined within, and the Annex feels like a hybrid environment of the 2.

Also, there are sometimes environments within environments, for example where visitors get to look through a hole to see another small world when they are already immersed in the art itself.I also felt that the overarching interactions within all buildings are that viewers are intended to be a part of the art piece itself. As seen from the entire Row House building, Yayoi Kusamas rooms in the main building, the residential feeling rooms in the annex, and many more, visitors get to immerse into the art itself and thus this creates an interesting way of interaction and also ties the entire Mattress Factory Museum together.

LAB ASSIGNMENT l SketchUp Drawing of BedroomMy bedroom is in a simple rectangular shape, with dark gray carpet on the floor, plain white walls, wooden desks, and simple beds. I also added window blinds to the windows since my blinds are usually down. Items I took from the 3D warehouse include the beds, desks, desk lamp, black table, mirror on the table, drawer cabinets, clothing hanging rack, radiator frame, artworks on the wall, and picture frames on the wall beside my bed.

STEP 2 l Artist and MoodPart A: Artist and ResearchJames Turrell was born in 1943 in LA, and is an American artist whose artworks primarily focus on the use of light and space.An interesting fact is that his Korean American wife, Kyung-Lim Lee, is also an artist and she does abstract drawings and paintings of geometric forms to create a sense of silence and meditation. I personally feel that I can see a connection between their works and I felt that their works might have influenced each others since both of them incorporates the use of geometric shapes.

However, I can also clearly distinguish their works from each other due to the fact that their use of color and styles are completely different.While James Turrell was 16, he obtained a pilots license when and helped flew Buddhist monks out of Chinese-controlled Tibet during the Vietnam War. In 1965, James Turrell received a bachelors degree in perceptual psychology from Pomona College in perceptual psychology and he also studied mathematics, geology, and astronomy while he was there.

He then enrolled in the graduate Studio Art program at UC Irvine in 1966 but was arrested during the same year for coaching young men to avoid the Vietnam draft and spent about a year in jail. He later received a masters degree in art from Claremont Graduate University.I find it interesting how Turrell was actually somewhat associated and involved in global affairs during that time and he has a really diverse background and gained a good understanding a various of fields during his undergraduate study.

His understanding of perceptual psychology and astronomy can clearly be seen in his artworks.In Turrells early works, he began experimenting with light. For example, in his Shallow Space Constructions created in 1968, he used screened partitions which allowed a radiant effusion to conceal light and create a flattened effect within the space.

But in addition to that, Turrell also works in the American desert and also known for his work in progress Roden Crater. In 1979, he acquired an extinct cinder volcano in Arizona and since then, he has spent decades moving tons of dirt and building tunnels and apertures to turn this crater into a massive naked-eye observatory for experiencing celestial phenomena.In the 1970s Turrell also began his series of Skyspaces which are enclosed spaces that have an open sky through the aperture in the roof.

In addition, he is also known for his light tunnels and light projects that create shapes that seem to have mass and actually exists, but are actually created with only light.Even though James Turrells works have definitely changed throughout his long art career, the theme of light, and perception bridges his artworks together and created his identity as an artist. Through most of his works, he hoped to present and create dull to describe but magical experiences to convey his feelings of how people spend so little time with art that it makes it hard to appreciate.

He also hopes to create a slow-art movement to change this habitual behavior of people, and thus, tried to communicate this through creating perceptions in space to let the viewers actually observe the art, and then touch it and realized what they see may not actually be the truth.Part B: Artist and MoodThe top left image and the bottom center image are actual works created by James Turrell, and the others are all images that I feel suggest the mood of his artworks. I picked a few images that contain geometric shapes and use a few different shades of color to create a sense of space reseeding similar to Turrells motifs.

I also tried to capture his use of light to shine solid colors in darkness and through colors popping out in a dark background. I included both computer generated images and photographic images to try to represent the sense of space in darkness through different ways. About the color palette, I chose to include 2 bright solid colors that are common in Turrells light projection and black and navy blue for the darkness of the space.

For the typography, I feels that san serif fonts gives more of a geometric feeling and resembles more with Turrells works. I also found an image of a typography in which the letters are made up of more than a variety of geometric shapes in different solid colors which I feel also resemble with his art. Overall, I wanted to capture the beam of color in darkness and the geometric and space perception feelings that Turrells art express.

After considering the feedback I have received during critique and also planning out my pop-up exhibition, I edited my mood board a little:I switched the two James Turrells artworks into two different ones that I decided to include in my pop-up exhibition. Also, I took out the green from my color palette since bright red and green dont seem to work well with each other and makes people think of Christmas. I added in blue and light gray instead since the light projection of the artworks I chose to include are these colors in addition to the red.

Also, I feel that red would work as an accent color againt the cool blue and neutral gray and black.I added in another image with type since I felt that the previous version of my mood board is lacking this a little. I switched out the image with the lamps.

Even though the color and tone of that image, the way that the color were created and shown doesnt really depict James Turrells works. After working on making the physical model of my exhibition, I decided to get rid of one of Turrells artwork and only include two of his works instead of three due to the limited amount of space I have.In addition, I also decided to include a quote of the artists words on one of my walls.

Throughout making the model, I realized that my model feels somewhat depressed due to the blackness and grayness the entire thing. Due to this, I decided to include an accent color, yellow. In my exhibition design, I used little spots of yellow as an accent color in the dotted light guides and the quotes on the wall to catch peoples attention.

Also, the color palette for most of the other parts are black or gray, which makes the yellow pop out a lot. Due to making these changes, I slightly adjusted the color palette in my mood board, and this is my 3rd and final mood board:STEP 3 l 2D & 3D Representations of The FrameAfter going into the Frame to observe the space and take measurements, I created a floor plan drawing and 4 elevation drawings for 2D representations of The Frame Gallery.After drawing the floor plan of The Frame Gallery, I then worked on creating an elevation for each of the walls.

I included some of the larger pipes and weird frames on each wall to make sure that I am aware of these things when designing my pop-up exhibit. For the 3D representation of The Frame Gallery, I made a Sketchup model of the gallery after having a rough idea of the set up of my exhibition already and directly included the walls in the middle that I planned to add in my design and also the wall and floor colors. I also roughly placed the curtains, projectors, and projections into my 3D digital model to get a sense of what it feels like and it really helped me visualize my design more accurately and get a sense of what I need to add and fix as I move on into the project.

STEP 4 l Parti DiagramUsing my floor plan of the gallery, I roughly planned out my pop-up exhibit design with a parti diagram. Because the artworks that I want to include all need their individual space with no other light distractions, I decided to add in wall dividers in the middle to create individual spaces for each of the areas and use curtains as thresholds for people to walk through as they transition into the different spaces. After entering the gallery, visitors would first get a sense of the artist and his background, experience the 3 different art projections in completely dark rooms (area B, C, and D), and then come out into the brightness again to find out info about The Mattress Factory Museum and other artists featured at the museum.

After getting feedback from my professors, I realized that the gallery space that I have to work with is actually not that big and the some of the areas that I created feels like a maze and are super narrow to walk through. I was advised to consider more about the accessibility of my exhibit space.In response to these suggestions, I increased the width of the space for people to walk through by shortening the walls in area A so people can move through the space a little easier.

I did the same to area B by decreasing the width of the walls and increasing the size of the curtains so the so for people to walk through is slightly wider. I also got rid of the walls i placed inside blocking the window since people inside would prob get a little depressed after being in the gallery in a while due to no natural light coming in at all. Making this change also allows people walking pass the gallery on the outside see through the windows to get a sense of the exhibit and hopefully come in to take a look.

As I continue to try to revise my design and talk to professors and TA for suggestions, I eventually decided to get rid of one of Turrells The Light Inside (area D in the parti diagram above), since the long hallway space I had planned is too narrow for people to walk through and the viewing distance for Milk Run projection (area C in the parti diagram above) at first sight is also pretty close up and would work better if I give more space to it. Thus, I completely got rid of The Light Inside and moved Milk Run projection to the wall on the right side instead on the wall in the middle. This gives the chance for people to get a whole view of the projection and then can walk up close to look at it close up.

Another change from the previous parti diagram is that I got rid of one of the wall dividers I added in area A and make the wall slanted so the area in front of the wall is bigger. I kept the area at the back before entering into area B the same since I want to keep the narrowness feeling of that space so that people would feel like they entered into a large space as they transition into area B due to the contrast. I also moved the wall the contains info about The Mattress Factory slightly backward to give more viewing space for that area as well.

After completely getting rid of one artwork area and adjusting the walls, the space feels a lot bigger and the exhibit is definitely more accessible to everyone including people with wheelchair. However, after making these changes, the space in the upper right corner of my parti diagram above where people walk through to exit area C is a little unnecessary and feels a little awkward. Thus, I shortened that space and made the curtain slanted reflecting the slanted wall located on the other side.

I also shortened the horizontal wall in between area C and D so that people can get a better sight of the Milk Run projection without having the wall slightly blocking visitors view. By making these changes, it also increases the space of area D and people would most likely feel more comfortable being and staying in that space for a while since increasing the area makes the space not feel as if it is only a transitional space for people to walk through.Comparing my final design to my original parti diagram, I felt that I definitely increased the accessibility of my exhibit and created a more balanced space making use of all areas without making the gallery feeling too overcrowded and pressured for the visitors.

STEP 5 l In-Class Interactions PrototypingDuring class, I explored a various ways of incorporating technology and tools to create different ways of interactions. The IFTTT website and the variety of applets allowed me to set up different interactions or connections. I was introduced to the if-then idea and was able to hands-on experiment with this concept through setting up my phone to receive a weather forecast every morning at 7am (If the clock hits 7am, then a weather forecast of the day will be sent to my phone).

I then played around with the littleBits kit that contains components such as a button, mini speaker, number flickering board, led light, and a few others. I played around by trying to connect the different components in the tool kit, but wasnt able to successfully make it to work. I then followed the set up examples shown on the back of the tool kit box, and was able to generate sound and get the numbers to change on the board.

Afterwards, I tried to download its app so I can control these interactions through my phone. After a little struggle of trying to get the wifi/hotspot to work, I was able to use my phone to indicate when I want the interaction to start and stop, and also changing the number on the board through my phone.In addition, I was also introduced to the Mesh tool and sensors and was able to played around with the movement, motion, and button sensor.

I downloaded the Mesh app as well and experimented adding an output for example taking a photo, sending a text message to the phone, etc, whenever the sensor is activated by its programed method. After playing around with these sensors, we were given the task in group of 3s to identify a problem in the studio and come up with a simple way to solve or improve it through incorporating the use of the tool kit or sensors. My groupmates and I decided to tackle the problem of how students tend to forget to document their work in process (or have dirty hands and cant hold their phone or camera to take process photos).

We thought of using the motion sensor to indicate to the phone to take photos when it senses a motion. Thus, students would simply need to set up their phone and the motion sensor on top of their studio desk, and the sensor would activate the photo capturing as it senses motion when the student is working at the desk.However, a problem that we faced was that the sensor is too sensitive and would continuous capture photos, which we feel is a little unneccessary.

Thus, we had to play around with the settings in the Mesh app and eventually set it to only take one photo per minute, and also having the photos directly sent and sync with another app such as evernote or google drive so the user can simply go in and look through the photos afterwards without needing to send the photos from his or her phone to another application. Overall, I enjoyed experimenting with these tool kits and sensors and the interactions were generated in ways that were a lot simpler than what I had imagined.STEP 6 l Developing Final Pop-up ExhibitionAs I work on developing a final pop-up exhibition design, I first sketched out a story board to capture the visitors journey and interactions they will encounter as they navigate through the space.

However, this story board is based of the first draft of my parti diagram and I definitely made a lot of changes as I continued to work on the project. I then build a physical model of my exhibition and it really helped me visualize my exhibit space a lot better and helped me realized that some areas I designed are too narrow. I made changes to my physical model in between each class and also documented these changes in my parti diagrams (please refer this part of my process in STEP 4 above).

After finalizing my design, I created the entire exhibit design in my Frame Gallery Sketchup file and exported screenshots to create visualizations to put together a more detailed visitors journey. This is the view that a visitor will see on their right right when they walk in through the entrance. There is a small front desk and image and info about James Turrell.

On the wall beside it, there is a direct quote from Turrell to give a general hint to the visitors before they actually see his work. Visitors will then walk through the wall and then through the first curtain, passing through a threshold.Once the visitor went through the curtains, he or she would be in a completely dark room.

However, there is actually a motion sensor on the curtain so that it will sensed someone entering the space and the white light projection will appear after 3 seconds. The purpose of this is to create a sense of wonder-ness at first and also unconsciously guide the visitor to move towards the light after they see it.Since this light projection makes it feels like it is a hollow space and that people can walk through it, visitors will tend to walk up to it and then later realized that it is actually a solid wall.

The visitor might be a little confused at first, but there is also a motion sensor that will sense the movement of the visitor when he or she is up close to the while light, and this will activate the projection of a line of small yellow dots that guides the visitor to walk to the curtain after 5 seconds. Once the visitor walks through this 2nd curtain, this is the view that he or she will see. This light projection also makes it feels like there is a platform in front even though it is actually a solid wall.

Visitors will tend to walk up to it and then realizing that this is actually only a solid wall as well. After the sensor senses a visitor in front of the light projection, small yellow dots will appear after 5 seconds, and the visitor will be guided to the actual path to the curtains.Once the visitor exits this last curtain, he or she will come out of the dark into the brightness again.

There are two touch screens on the wall for people to find out information about the artist, artworks, and also The Mattress Factory Museum and also other artists featured in the museum. There is also a large sign on the wall to try to get visitors to go visit the Mattress Factory Museum.After this interaction with the touch screen, the visitor can then exit through the door on their right as shown in this image above.

Overall, the main interactions I included was creating a time-based experience with James Turrells artworks through the use of motion sensors and adding additional light dots that serves as guides to complete this visitors journey. Another interaction is the touch screens on the wall so people dont have to use their small phones to try to find more information and can access it more easily and comfortably. The touch screens also let people have access to other info about the Mattress Factory, which ties together to the sign above it and emphasize the purpose of this pop-up exhibit, which is to get people to visit the actual museum.

In addition, in my exhibition design, I eventually decided to used little spots of yellow as an accent color in the dotted light guides and the quotes on the wall to catch peoples attention. Also, the color palette for most of the other parts are black or gray, which makes the yellow pop out a lot.Other than the visualization renderings, I also made a floor plan and a bunch of elevation drawings with my final design even though I ended up not including these in my final presentation since I felt that it would be a little redundant if I show these along with my parti diagram and visualizations.

I felt that my visualizations capture the color and mood when people move through the space whereas my floor plan and elevations dont and thus can tell the overall story and navigation journey better. with labelsAlso, here are some photographs of my physical model in addition to the digital drawings and renderings.The physical model really helped me get a better sense of how big the actual space is and I was able to rescale a lot of my text to make it reasonably sized for visitors to read comfortably and not needing to look at gigantic paragraphs of text or interact with a gigantic touch screen.

Overall, all the different aspects and parts of this project really helped me along the way and I felt that my exhibition design has definitely improved a lot from where I was at the beginning. STEP 7 l Final Self-ReflectionMeta-cognitive Knowledge: Working through this project gave me the chance to apply what I have learned throughout the 1st project and articulate my knowledge in my pop-up exhibition design. For example, I definitely thought about what kind of transitions and thresholds I want to include in my exhibit to provide visitors the experience that best matches my mood and my intent.

Throughout the process, I was able to become more mindful of the scale of my objects and texts on the wall, and how things and information can be positioned to increase the readability and accessibility. In addition, I was also able to generate hybrid design interactions through adding onto the artists artworks and creating another layer of time-based interaction.Meta-cognitive Regulation: As I move into working on future design projects, I would definitely keep the knowledge that I have learned throughout this project in mind and try to apply it in different fields of design such as trying to implement hybrid environments to generate a more interesting space or way of interaction.

I felt that I have started to think about how I can incorporate the use of technology and sensors to create a hybrid environment but I felt that a lot of these aspects still need to be further thought though in order to make the design actually feasible. I also hope to be more efficient in my process in the future and hopefully this will enable me to go deeper with my thinkings and be able to generate more effective solutions.Meta-cognitive Experiences: I was definitely motivated throughout the project and I felt that I was learning a lot despite making changes to my design and model almost everyday throughout, and knowing that I am learning kept me motivated.

Some challenges that I have faced was the lack of time since building the model and making changes to it so often really consumed a lot of time and also having a lack of ability to prototype my actual interaction in my model due to it being a time-based intervention and deals with using sensors to sense motion. However, I tried to capture the experience that I want to create using a series of visualizations and I felt that this tactic and strategy was quite effective for me. Overall, I was able to sustain my effort over time since I felt that I am constantly learning and growing as I worked on the project, and this definitely kept me motivated throughout the project RELATED QUESTION What is the best place to find custom embroidered patches?

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