Concept Design: Exhibit Design Imaginatorium

Museum is a loose and outdated term for a space that exhibits humanity’s creative, technological or scientific achievements through time and even into a foreseeable future. Most often though, it deters visitor’s active involvement, interaction or contribution to themes being exhibited. It is for visitors to walk through, passively observe, read about without inviting, inspiring and empowering their contribution to it.

Hence, I thought that Imaginatorium is a much more inviting term for an immersive & interactive exhibit space devoted to reflecting, illustrating and impressing its visitors with power of human Imagination, thus inspiring their pride, their imagination, ideation and then contributing to it.

Such a space would not be entirely defined by designers but rather be inviting and inspiring visitors to become its co-creators and co-curators, contributing to ways it reflects on a theme, scope, focus and power of our imagination, its varied expressions, and applications.

Inspired visitors will be empowered to actively add their ideas to a given theme. Through such hands-on involvement, the space would evolve, continually expanding as visitors continually return to expand on, or complete their initial projects. However, they would find that, since their last visit, their concepts have been built on and magnified by ensuing visitors who, inspired by what their predecessors initiated, were enthused to contribute their own perspectives.

Thus the initial space, intentionally designed to inspire and encourage collaboration and active contribution of its diverse visitors, would grow and evolve through their injection of their ideas and creative expressions, transforming them into curators and co-creators. Visitors would be provided all kinds of materials, tools and technological support needed to realize their ideas. Such support would encourage and embolden visitors to strive for the far-out aspirations they have had but, until now, thought unattainable or out of reach of their possibilities.

This, to me, represents the promise and thrill current science museums lack. Thus supported, visitors would keep returning, evolving and building on initial expression of their ideas. What a fantastic way it will be for a museum to build a potent relationship with its constituents.

As a result of this enthusing process, evolution and expansion, the entire space would continue to flourish, transforming the entire space into a canvas for visitors’ imaginative expressions as well as reflection of the society they are representatives of.