Science North: Wild Weather
Overview
Wild Weather for Science North is a 6,000-square-foot blockbuster travelling interactive exhibition, that immerses visitors of all ages in the science of severe weather.
Details
- Client
- Science North
- Project
- Wild Weather – Travelling Exhibit, Science North
- Size
- 6,000 sq. ft.
- Project Delivery
- Design-Build
- Scope
- Exhibit Design - Science, Exhibit Design - Traveling
- Location
- N. America (Various Locations)
- Year Completed
- 2017
The
Goal
Wild Weather provides an engaging, immersive, and entertaining experience for visitors to explore the power and unpredictability of severe weather. Science North leverages the public’s fascination with severe weather events to increase visitor understanding of the science behind severe weather, its connection to the changing climate, and the emerging technologies and forecasting techniques.
Wild Weather not only provides a great experience but is also designed and fabricated to meet the rigorous demands of travelling to multiple venues.
The
Design
Powerful forces of nature are demonstrated throughout this exhibition. Visitors encounter thunderstorms, dance through winter snowstorms and explore extreme heat events. They can experience a research flight through an intense hurricane, witness the destructive power of a tornado, follow turbulent cloud formations and lightning strikes, become citizen scientists during a raging winter storm, and meet a researcher studying the force of wind in the lab. There are kid-focused crawl-throughs and photo opportunities throughout the exhibit.
A gallery of hurricane photography and its impact on citizens across the United States is also given a
special design treatment in the center of the exhibit. These large photographic images are displayed on freestanding walls layered in distressed wood to embody the destruction and ruin left behind by these overwhelming forces of nature.
As a travelling exhibit, special consideration was taken to design a collection of exhibits that can be reoriented in each host venue and still maintain continuity and cohesiveness. Exhibits were designed to be stand-alone and easily assembled and disassembled for transport and given a strict height limit.
The
Result
Wild Weather is a jam-packed comprehensive travelling show. Science North leveraged its in-house capabilities to deliver extensive multimedia elements and utilized a new unique partnership with the Ontario Science Centre (OSC) to fabricate a large number of the exhibits. R&P developed a successful working relationship with Science North and the OSC, and together the team delivered a number of interactive elements that are the stars of the show. Also hugely successful is the gesture-based dance interactive where visitors young and old can literally ‘dance up a storm’. As they create movement, they add more energy into the system, provoking storm elements. It is charming and fun amidst a comprehensive display of scientific exploration.
Behind
The Scenes
The project had a short development window and the R&P design team worked closely with the client to expedite the development of the design concepts to allow for a detailed design development and prototyping process with the OCS under a tight timeline. Despite the short duration, the project was successful due to a strong team and great communication and collaboration.
