Coming Together
Coming Together is an exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington DC. that explores ways that cities have adapted post-pandemic. We worked with architects, Suchi Reddy and her team at Reddymade to design an experience that leads you through the myriad challenges and case studies gathered from cities across the country. Our design inspiration began with jersey-barriers—those orange street barriers that were creatively co-opted by restaurants and cafes to extend into sidewalks and streets when we were all forced to meet outside.
The first gallery sets the scene through video and data visualizations that define what ’downtown’ means and show how downtowns were effected by the pandemic. These include video projections of drone footage showing empty streets, charts of city center populations pre- and post-pandemic, and a map wall with aerial views of 15 cities from across the country highlighting the downtown areas though walking distances. In the center of the room are 6 foot diameter circles and seats that harken back to times of social distancing. This round shape was then carried throughout the rest of the galleries.
To engage with the audience we designed several analog interactive walls where visitors can add stickers in answer to questions about how they use and view downtowns. These are accompanied by a digital interactive experience designed by design studio, Hovercraft, that collects geolocated memories and future hopes from viewers.
We hired illustrator Nicholas Blechman to help explain some of the more civic development topics to the lay-person. These white-on black line drawings add a sense of whimsy, pulling viewers in from multiple perspectives.
The exhibition identity was inspired by animal flocking patterns and the work of urbanist William Whyte who studied pedestrian behavior and city dynamics in downtown plazas and sidewalks. We made an interactive piece that pushes and pulls dots as you hover over and hold your cursor down. This was then used as the basis for static graphics throughout the exhibition.
An anamorphic banner system in the hallway draws visitors to the gallery entrance and can be seen from the atrium below.
