Design Edge Canada fea­tured DE’s work on the Telus Spark Sci­ence Cen­tre in Cal­gary in its Jan/Feb 2012 issue. The focus of the issue was “Decon­struct­ing the design process” and the arti­cle explains DE’s unique approach to exhibit design for the exhibits at the sci­ence centre.

The tra­di­tional sci­ence cen­tre exhibit design process was essen­tially turned on its head in this project. DE and the Telus Spark inter­nal design team took an ‘experience-focused’ approach in which the qual­ity and fun of the engage­ment with the exhibit was con­sid­ered first, before the con­tent out­comes and learn­ing objec­tives. The idea was to cre­ate exhibits that were ‘catchy’ but which also opened up the vis­i­tors to dis­cus­sion and con­tem­pla­tion about a given sub­ject. The process of cre­at­ing mock-ups (exhibit pilots) allowed the DE team to actu­ally test the ideas with real sci­ence cen­tre vis­i­tors. This was a very spe­cial oppor­tu­nity for val­i­dat­ing design ideas and the results in many cases were very surprising!