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!