Museums are becoming increasingly more interactive, educational, and community-centered. In light of these changes, my design studies have focused on exhibition design for art museums, which, due to the nature of their collections, have been slower in adopting interactive strategies. This report summarizes the history of museums and illustrates how educational theories can be applied to exhibit design. Moreover, I present my design investigations, which resulted in a methodology for critiquing and reinventing museum displays of art. / text

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary Catherine E. Kingery-Page / The primary reasons for the existence of contemporary zoological parks are presented as conservation and conservation education. But in reality, human entertainment is the primary function of traditional zoos. There is a moral dilemma behind the practice of removing wild animals from their native habitats and holding them captive, primarily for the purpose of human entertainment and education. Exhibits designed with these human desires in mind never completely meet the needs of the animal. An exhibit designed with conservation in mind can fully address animal needs. The moral dilemma of keeping wild animals captive can be reconciled if the purpose of conservation shifts to the forefront of exhibit design. The term conservation, in this setting, refers to a habitat where a healthy, captive population can be sustained. Conservation means acquiring an in-depth understanding of an animal species and combining it with thoughtful, insightful design that responds to the species’ needs first. Secondary design considerations include facilitating the work of the animal keeper and visitor education and recreation. The keeper plays an important role in the health and well-being of the animal; a functional workplace is essential to the keeper’s job. The visitor plays an essential role in maintaining the funding that supports the zoo. In order for zoos to maintain adequate funding, they need visitors. To make this experience mutually worthwhile, exhibit design must create an experience that visitors want to be a part of, and the exhibit should impart an educational message to these visitors. This conservation-minded approach results in an exhibit that will serve primarily as a conservation facility. The exhibit is better suited to the animal by encouraging natural behavior and more accurately recreating natural habitat. A conservation exhibit can also fulfill the secondary purpose of human education by providing the visitor with a much richer depiction of the animal in its natural state, as well as showing visitors the need for species conservation.

Visitors use and understanding of interactive exhibits and their learning of scientific concepts was investigated by three studies. The first study categorised visitors' use of a sound exhibit and found that 49% successfully used the exhibit. Understanding was described with a knowledge hierarchy and learning was measured using a pre-test and post-test. Findings indicated that many visitors had prior knowledge of the relevant concepts and 50% of visitors learnt a concept from the exhibit. The second study investigated young children's understanding and interaction with the Mitey Quarry, a cooperative exhibit of four elements, conveyor, elevator, auger and sorter, which were used to move balls around the exhibit. Findings indicated that children's activities and their level of understanding varied for each element, though higher levels were achieved with elements that were easily observable. The children's activities began with observation, and then vacillated between manipulation, operation and control of an element. The third study identified the educational objectives of a physical fitness exhibit, Let's Get Physical, and their achievement by high school students. Findings indicated that the instructional sequence integrated cognitive and affective objectives, and although 42% of students stated their intentions to begin new exercise activities in response to the exhibit message "to be active everyday", after two weeks, these intentions had not been enacted. The research has contributed to improved exhibit design by demonstrating the value of knowledge, activity and affective hierarchies in identifying exhibit objectives and providing a means for evaluation. Hierarchies are an effective way to describe and measure the visitors' use and understanding of interactive exhibits and learning from them.

This dissertation proposes an initial framework for designing and presenting exhibits in science centers and to recommend methods for improving the educational role of planetariums in science centers.

Humans maintain wild animals in zoological parks for the purposes of education,conservation, research, and recreation. However, abnormal behaviors may develop in animals housed in human-made environments, if those environments do not allow them to carry out their natural behaviors (such as swimming, climbing, stalking, and predation). Captive environments in zoological parks often do not provide for natural behaviors due to spatial constraints and negative public reaction. Tigers (Panthera tigris) present a difficult case; they have large home ranges in the wild and natural predatory hunting behaviors that are difficult to provide for in captivity. As the numbers of wild tigers decline, captive breeding programs have become a major focus of the zoo community, which magnifies the importance of research on tiger husbandry. A body of research exists on small felids, but little, if any, has focused on tigers. This thesis presents an analysis of the effects of the captive environment on the behaviors of 18 captive Bengal and Siberian tigers in four zoological parks in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Certain animal characteristics (such as subspecies, and age) were also related to behavior. Several characteristics of the captive environment had statistically significant effects on stereotypic and exploratory behaviors of tigers: shade availability, the presence of a body of water, cage size, the presence of a conspecific, vegetation, environmental enrichment, and substrate type. There were significant differences in the behaviors of the two subspecies studied, but the reason for the differences are unclear. The results of this study showed clearly that tigers kept in more natural and complex enclosures performed less stereotypic pacing (unnatural behavior), and more exploratory (natural) behaviors than those housed in less natural enclosures. Reducing the stress level in captive tigers will enhance the animals' overall physical and psychological well being, which will in turn increase the success of captive breeding programs. These results suggest that captive tigers should be housed in large enclosures containing natural substrate and vegetation, water pools, ample shade, a variety of resting locations, and a variety of enrichment items. / Master of Science

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The process of museum exhibit design includes a variety of activities, including collaboration on teams, consulting learning theories, following process models, brainstorming, performing evaluations, and using visuals. Although some articles mention these topics, very few provide specific details about these practices. This dissertation, which includes three articles, explores how design and visual communication occur in exhibit design. The first article examines how exhibit design teams function. The second article describes how they use visual representations to engage team members in ideation and concept development as they planned for new exhibits. This is based on the assumption that designers need to be actively engaged in the design process to truly be creative and develop innovative ideas. Building off the second article, the third article provides practical implications and examples for professionals in the field. These articles seek to add insight on the design process and use of visuals in museum exhibit design.

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The purpose of this thesis project is to develop a set of interactive digital solutions designed to enhance the interest and knowledge intake of visitors at Skånes Djurpark (Zoo of Scania) in Höör. The project was carried out in collaboration with Skånes Djurpark and representatives from its visitors. Our thesis is based on academic works in the fields of interaction design, exhibit design and contextual learning. Ethnographical field studies have been conducted at Skånes Djurpark with additional field studies at Tropikariet in Helsingborg, Copenhagen Zoo and Regionmuseet Kristianstad. Existing information signs in Skånes Djurpark are primarily image- and textbased, forcing visitors to divert their attention from the different species of Nordic animals that inhabit the zoological park. Our proposed set of designs include interactive signage solutions using audiomedia, which allows visitors to learn by listening to stories while experiencing and physically looking at living animals.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar as exposições como um fenômeno de linguagem de arquitetura, pensando a ação de arquitetos curadores como um exercício de ressignificação do espaço onde ela será construída. Neste espaço inicial, denominado espaço base, que tem características físicas, institucionais e simbólicas será processada uma ressignificação, que parte de ideias e programas dentro de uma lógica discursiva. Esta lógica será transposta através do desenho de projeto num dispositivo de comunicação, construído através de uma narrativa espacial. Esta narrativa espacial se dá pelo encadeamento de seus setores parciais, denominados de espaços frases, com o objetivo de facilitar a comunicação do programa previsto. Estes conceitos serão aplicados a dois estudos de caso das exposições mais relevantes de duas arquitetas e curadoras realizadas no Brasil: Lina Bo Bardi e Gisela Magalhães. Como conclusão do trabalho, procurou-se estabelecer similaridades e diferenças na linguagem de arquitetura expositiva de ambas as autoras. / This work has the object to analyze the exhibitions as a phenomenon of architectural language, thinking the work of curators architects as an exercise in ressignification the space where it will be built. In this initial space, called base space, which has physical, institutional and symbolic characteristics will be processed with a ressignification, which has the starting point in the ideas and programs within a discursive logic. This logic will be implemented through the architectural project design of a communication device, constructed by a spatial narrative. This space gives the narrative thread of their partial sectors, called phrases spaces, in order to facilitate communication of the planned program. These concepts will be applied to two case studies of the most important exhibitions of two Brazilian curators architects: Lina Bo Bardi and Gisela Magalhaes. The conclusion of this work was to establish similarities and differences in the exhibition architecture language of both authors.