LEARNING TO SEE
DENVER BOTANIC GARDENS
— 2014
Second Story Interactive Studios,
Portland, OR
Creative: Daniel Meyers, Traci Sym, Jordan Tull, David Waingarten, Swanny Mouton, Intern: Erin Jacobson
Technology: Matt Arnold, Chris Carlson, Don Richardson, Don Davies, Adam Paikowsky
Production: Jen Dolan
AV: Vanessa Patchet
*Photography from Second Story Interactive Studios
The mission of the Denver Botanic Gardens is to educate, entertain, and enlighten visitors by connecting them with plants, particularly those found in the Rocky Mountain area and comparable regions around the world. In the fall of 2014, the Gardens opened its Science Pyramid, a space dedicated to highlighting the institution’s scientific research and conservation efforts. Second Story created the permanent exhibit Learning to See within the Pyramid, sharing with visitors stories of plants, ecosystems, and science through digital and physical interactives, large-scale graphics, and a lighting environment that responds to the weather at the Gardens.
*Copy by Second Story
BEHIND THE LENS
I joined Second Story Interactive Studios as an intern in the Spring of 2014 to immersive myself in the world of Experience Design and interactive media. I had been pushing my Architecture education to focus on this realm and the year prior, completed my Interior Architecture thesis with similar goals on an interactive experience titled ‘This is Oregon’. My time at Second Story introduced me to a diversity of clients and technologies, all trying to push the boundaries of brand and cultural experiences. I was most involved however, with a project that called on the expertise of the entire interdisciplinary team at Second Story - ‘Learning To See’, an exhibit located in the Science Pyramid of the Denver Botanic Gardens.
1
When I joined the crew in April, the project was through concept development and into the prototyping and testing phase. The interdisciplinary team at Second Story had worked together to develop the all of the components necessary for an immersive environment - content, graphics, media, and interior design. My role was to assist in the development, prototyping and testing of two key components in the exhibit - the pylons and the topographic table.
THE ASPEN
GROVE
Pylons, emulating Colorado aspens, were designed to
communicate three different types of content.
- onsite wind speed and temperature
- sounds from various Colorado habitats
- bite size animated content on Colorado wildlife.
As a major focal feature of the space, the pylons needed to maintain their thin, sculptural forms, as designed by the creative team. This was a challenge as we started to integrate some of the physical devices into the base. Awkward shapes and lots of wiring required us to create detailed 3d models of all internal components so that we could build internal platforms and mounting brackets to fit inside the pylon bases.
The audio transducer introduced a unique tactile experience into the exhibition, utilizing the arm bones as the receptor for sound. While the principle of the transducer was simple, choosing the material for sound transmission was not. Material density, thickness and the pressure applied to the material can all affect how the sound will transmit. After testing multiple options, brass was deemed to be the most appropriate for this application.
TOPO
GRAPHIC
Second Story’s content and media team developed a digital touchscreen experience for visitors to explore the different ecological regions within Colorado. A large topographic table was created as a tandem element to work in conjunction with the touchscreen narrative.
A 3-D effect was created for the topo table by stacking multiple layers of etched acrylic, each representing a single topographic layer. LED strips surround the layers, activating different ecological regions as users engage with partner content on the touchscreen. When faced with breaking down the multiple layers of topographic information into 2-D surfaces for etching, we turned to the assistance of modeling software, RHINO to help us ‘slice’ the model into etch-able vectors.
Image for illustration of Rhino software, only - does not include actual project data.
Image produced by Generative Landscapes.
