“How much do exhibitions cost?” The number one question that I am asked.

The quick answer is: “$75-$550 per square foot”

“Why such a wide range?”

An Art exhibit of mostly flat Art work, little mount making or rigging can start at $75 per square foot including graphics. An interactive Science Center exhibition with a high density of interactive exhibits can reach $550 per square foot and beyond. When Disney does preliminary estimates of their attractions they budget $650 per square foot.

Per Square Foot Costs:
Aquarium $300-$550 per sq. ft.
Science Centers $300-$550 per sq. ft. (Highly interactive)
Corporate Museum $150-$550 per sq. ft.
Natural History Museum $250-$400 per sq. ft.
Out Door Exhibits $300-$550 per sq. ft. (Interactive, high end water exhibits)
Traveling Exhibition $100-$400 per sq. ft. (Dependent on level of interactivity)
Visitor Center $150-$300 per sq. ft.
Children’s Museum $150-$350 per sq. ft.
Art Museum Exhibition $75-$200 per sq. ft. (Does not include cost of Art)

Notes:
1. All pricing dependent on level of interactivity, original exhibits and A/V
2. Costs do include, exhibition lighting, exhibition area walls, floor and wall coverings, specialty electrical requirements and exhibit costs
3. Costs do not include HVAC, base building electrical, cleaning lights, base building drywall, shipping and life / safety costs (sprinklers, exit signs, fire extinguishers)
4. Does not include back of house costs
5. Does not include FFE
6. Does not include staffing costs

Most design firms charge 20%-25% of the exhibition budget for design fees, i.e. “a 10,000 square foot science center is $300 per square foot times 10,000 sq. ft. for an exhibition budget of $3,000,000, 20% of the budget would be design fees ($600,000)”. Of the 20% design fees, approximately 25%-50% are graphic design fees, depending on the type of exhibition.

In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t work on percentage basis, I don’t believe it is fair to the client or creates the best results, we work on an hourly basis, estimating hours per phase.  I have been estimating museum exhibition costs since 1992.

Percentage of Design Fee Per Phase
Concept Development 15%
Schematic Design 30%
Design Development 40%
Final Design 15%

Total 100%

Notes:
1. Percentages are approximate; Art exhibition will have a greater percentage of conceptual development (curator fees) than a Children’s Museum.

Example Exhibition Costs:
10,000 Science Center Exhibition at $300 per square foot is $3,000,000 in exhibition costs with $600,000 in design fees.

Resources:

Exhibitionist, Vol. 21, No. 1, Spring 2002 by Jay Rounds and Joyce Cheney
2009 ASTC Statistics Analysis Package

Was at a meeting today and the conversation turned to museum design firms.  The typical museum design firm is 6-8 people with a small office in New York City, San Francisco or Washington, D.C.  As projects come in, the same group tries to “figure out” solutions for the the new exhibition.  The problem; the same 6-8 people are not as good at designing a science center exhibition as an Art museum exhibition, causing a “force fit”, trying to make the same staff “experts” in different disciplines.

Got me thinking about Procter and Gamble and their recent sale of  the Pringles brand.  Procter and Gambel is betting that it can use the $1.5 billion dollars from the sale of Pringles for the development of new brands.   Proctor and Gambel’s staretegy, their core business is “Innovation, not consumer goods”.  It is far more profitable to create successful new brands rather than  maintain existing brands.

A typical museum project is 2-4 years in development.  What if the museums were designed by virtural teams assembled only for a specific project and the project team is divided into two parts, the Research and Development team and “Off the shelf” team?  70% of most museum projects are repackaging of existing technologies and solutions, while 30% are unique to the project.   By having the “Off the shelf” team working on project management of known solutions it frees resorces for the Research and Development Team to create innovative solutions.

Museums are at a “cross roads”, if they do not learn to innovate they will continue to go away.

“Virtual Museum Design Team” Advantages:

• Nimble Project Teams
• Lower Cost
• Faster Project Cycle
• Higher rate of success (70% known solutions)

“Virtual Museum Design Team” Disadvantages:

• More complex team communication
• Higher risk to client, Virtual Museum Team an unknown entity
• New model for design

Fast Companies listing of the “Most Innovative Companies of 2011″:

http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2011/

“How to start a Science Center”.  Designing a Science Center can be divided into ten steps that include; project objectives, exhibition design, coordination with building architecture, fabrication and installation.  Exhibition design is visually communicating casework, lighting and equipment the creates the visitor experience while considering aesthetic and functional perimeters.

A project the scale of a science center requires a group of stakeholders.  The group should include the founder, a money person, a scientist, a politician, an artist, a designer and a community leader.  Find a person to represent each, a person who can raise money, a scientist, an active politician who can make things happen, an artist, a designer, and a  community representative (PTA leader, Superintendent of Schools or a real estate developer are all great)

10 Steps:

1. Project Objectives - Maybe the toughest part of all.  Why are you building the science center?  What is the visitor experience?  What are the visitor outcomes? “World Class”, “Clean, Modern Aesthetic”, “Fun and Interactive” – really don’t tell you much at all. I often think that we each have a movie playing in our head’s when descriptions such as “Fun and Interactive” are used, one person’s “movie” is different from another’s.  The trick is to get all the stakeholders with the same movie.   The best method I have found is a research trip with all of the stakeholders.  Schedule a long weekend, for the 4-8 people that comprise the “core” team and go see at least 3-4 Science Centers.  Ask lots of questions and view different exhibits at the same time.  Document your findings from the trip.
2. Critical Mass – Sometimes the best way to start a project is to gather a group of smart, creative people with a pot of coffee, some good food and talk.  Talk for a couple of hours, “if you could create any type of Science Center, what would that place be?”, create quick concepts and take lots of notes.  Set up a meeting to review the ideas.  Type up the meeting notes and review the notes before the next meeting.  At the next meeting narrow your conversation to three or four concepts for the Science Center.  Work to create an “Umbrella concept”,  an idea that provides a superset or grouping of concepts that all fall under a single common category.   An umbrella concept is the central and coordinating concept that will represent a number of smaller, separate concepts.  Try to be relaxed and have fun.  This is the most important work you will create in the whole process.  A few examples, Exploratorium -”An ongoing exploration of science, art, and human perception”, Discovery Science Center – “Science Southern California Style”, “The Tech Museum of Innovation” (the name says it all), The Museum of Science and Industry – Coal Mine, Silver Streak, Farm Tech, U-505 and the Wright Flyer.  With each example the Umbrella Concept is the unifying concept for the institution a sort of “elevator speech” for the Science Center.  Take your time and try on several unifying concepts before deciding on one, make sure you have enough “critical mass” of exhibit ideas to support the Umbrella Concept.
3. Filters There is no shortage of good ideas.  Often the tough part is having a way to separate one good idea from another.  Create a set of “Exhibition Filters”; guiding principles by which exhibits are chosen or rejected.  The filters become the criteria by which the exhibits are judged to be included as part of the overall Science Center.  Examples of Exhibition Filters, “Wherever possible exhibits will be open ended with multiple outcomes”, “Exhibits will be discovery based vs. didactic” and “Exhibits and environments will be built with exposed fasteners and connections”. Make sure your Exhibition Filters are in line with your Umbrella Concept.   Run a couple of tests, “we know we would like XYZ exhibit in the science center, does it pass our Exhibition Filters?
4. Design and Research Concept Development, Schematic Design, Design Development and Final Design are the phases of exhibition design.  As the process goes through iterations, more and more details will be added to the design.  During Concept Design, you will be reviewing area themes and space allocation, schematic design, you will be reviewing rough layouts of exhibits in areas, Design development, you will be reviewing dimensioned drawings of each area and Final Design will be details of case design and AV systems.  The Fabricator will be creating Working Drawings for review prior to fabrication.  Accept and embrace that exhibition design is a never ending process, even on opening day, you will still be making changes and revisions.  Revisions are not mistakes.  What you are creating has never existed before.  Until you have hundreds of people in the science center you are not going to know how it all works.  A friend of mine says “designers are people who can see the future”, she may be right.  A design is an image of the future, but only “an” image, the “image” will change with time.
5. Architecture Sometimes the building comes first and you have to do a “force fit”, “how do you create your umbrella concept in the planned architecture?”.  Sometimes you create a the Umbrella Concept and work with an architect to reflect the umbrella concept in the architecture.  The truth is the second is much more difficult than the first.  Architects are NOT exhibition designers.  Often exhibition designers and architects think very differently.  Architects are concerned about creating spaces, exhibition designers are concerned with creating activities.   In the best relationships the architect creates a space to house the activities of the Science Center.  You want a very patient architect, by design your process will be ever changing, and that will mean changes to the architecture.  Define the spaces for the exhibitions, create “foot prints” of each exhibition area.  Include, lighting, HVAC, electrical, doors, windows and create a elevations of the space and reflected ceiling plans.
6. 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 There are thousands of science centers all over the world, there is no need to “redesign the wheel”.  1/3 of the exhibits should be original to the Science Center, 1/3 purchased from a vendor or science center and modified and 1/3 should be bought “off the shelf”.   Once you have established the areas of your science center, go visit at least ten science centers and find out what exhibits could be used for your science center. Start a data base of the exhibits that can be purchased “off the shelf”, which ones you like but would like modified and exhibits that you would like original to the science center.  To the “nah sayers”, Frank Oppenheimer the founder of the Exploratorium researched existing science class experiments as the starting point for the Exploratorium.
7. Science Center Icons Create an icon for the Science Center and create an icon for each exhibition area.  I often think about the “parking lot conversation”, when people are walking back to there car after visiting the science center “what is the one exhibit they will be talking about?”  Make sure that you have that “wow” exhibit for the science center and each exhibition area.  A few samples of icons, the Tactile Dome at the Exploratorium, The Cube at Discovery Science Center and The Hoberman Sphere at Liberty Science Center.
   
8. Fabricate Ask other science centers who they used for fabrication, ask local building contractors for the names of casework companies and speak to your local convention center about trade show fabricators.  Start a list of ten fabricators and go visit each shop and ask to meet the project manager.  Walk through the shop and look at the projects in the shop, look at the quality of the work, review the working drawings in the shop.  Narrow your search down to three  fabricators and ask each to prototype an exhibit and tell them you are choosing between three shops and one of the shops will win the project contract.  Choose your fabricator by the quality of their project manager, the quality of the shops workmanship and their reputation and response to warranty requests.
9. Prototype, Prototype, Prototype One third of the exhibits will be bought “off the shelf”, leaving two thirds that will either be original to the science center or modified “off the shelf”.  Some of the original exhibits will be from artists, some will be built by the selected  fabricator and some will be modified “off the shelf” that will be modified by the original vendor.  Start a list of the exhibits to be prototyped and group them by type.  Create a relationship with a local Art museum, library, middle school or college and prototype the exhibits there.  Test the exhibits with the public and evaluate the responses and modify the exhibits according to the evaluation.  
   
10. Install, Open and Archive Installation, opening and archiving is part of the design process.  During installation there will be lots of small (and maybe large) decisions made; changes in exhibit placement, changes in lighting, changes in exhibit parts and all of those decisions need to be captured in “as built drawings”, maintenance manuals and archived for future changes and maintenance.

Be as transparent as possible.  Include others in the process and ask for feedback, use facebook, tweeter and a blog and include people in the process.

Funny isn’t it, only one of the ten steps even mentions drawings !  Drawings are not designs, drawings are the culmination of lots of research and thinking.  Some Science Centers such as the Exploratorium don’t even create drawings until after the exhibition has been prototyped and evaluated. The best exhibit designs happen through research, creativity, evaluation and luck.

Would love to hear comments about the ten steps above.  A future post will be the “10 steps to Project Managing the Opening of a Science Center.

Just finished work at the Tech Museum as Exhibit Producer of the new Silicon Valley Innovation Gallery.  While at the Tech Museum had the pleasure of working with Jason Holt of Google on the installation of Liquid Galaxy.   Liquid Galaxy is Google’s immersive Google Earth environment comprised of eight 55-inch LCD screens showing Google Earth in a surround view.   Liquid Galaxy started as a 20% project and has since grown to have installations in Google offices all over the world. As of September 30th, Google has made the code and hardware available to build your own Liquid Galaxy.

Google Blog Liquid Galaxy Entry:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/galaxy-of-your-own.html

Liquid Galaxy website:

http://code.google.com/p/liquid-galaxy/

Rear Window from Nigel Upchurch on Vimeo.

From the Getty Images website:
“Mishmash is a competition run by Getty Images and Pump Audio. The idea is to create a one to three minute video using our footage and music, along with any of self-generated illustration, visual and sound effects. Entries will be judged by a panel of leading creatives within the fields of the worlds of advertising, TV and film production.”
http://mishmash.gettyimages.com/

Got me thinking.

Artists use museum collections in a mashup style (see Artist’s Choice at MOMA http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/304), Muscians use other artists music in a mashup style http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_%28music%29.

What if Science Centers, Children’s Museums, created new exhibitions in a mashup style?  It would be wonderful.  Use the pieces of exhibits from lots of different institutions and mix them up and add “spice” (graphics, lighting, wall treatments).  You could create new exhibits every six weeks, trucking exhibits from museum to museum.  Fits well with my Hub Museum concept.

What do you think?

Some of the Green Museum Exhibition Websites, I have found:

http://sedesignblog.blogspot.com/

http://tiny.cc/a4xae

http://www.designvic.com/SustainabilityKit/JargonBuster.aspx

http://www.greenexhibits.org

http://www.ecospecifier.org/

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Museum-Primer-Environmental-Practice/dp/0759111650/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219085672&sr=1-1

http://www.greendesignwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

http://blog.cooperhewitt.org/2009/05/20/green-exhibition-design

http://ecoriteimaging.com/?page_id=323

http://www.calmuseums.info/gmi/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_museum

I call lots of museums.  I have become fascinated by the telephone systems of different museums, some museum telephone systems are easy to navigate and some are nerve racking and frustrating.

Exhibitions are a form of communication and the culture of the museum offers the “voice” to that communication.  Is the “voice” a friend? A teacher? An older relative?  It is fascinating the different voices that are communicated for exhibitions.  I like thinking in analogies, often I learn more about the culture of a museum from their phone system than I do from their organizational chart.  Is the phone system user friendly?  Easy to navigate? Helpful?  Able to connect me with the information in the way I want to connect?

Think about your own museum phone system and try calling as a teacher wanting to book a school trip.  Try calling as a mother wanting directions, try calling as the vendor who works on the air conditioning, for each call were your needs met?  Could you connect with the appropriate person?

In many ways a phone system is like a museum, callers are contacting the museum for information tailored to them in a welcoming fashion at their own level, a tall order, but try calling American Express and see how you feel or call Fidelity Investments and see how you feel.  Information tailored to the visitor in a pleasant and efficient manner, it can be done!

Great guideline from the Association of Children’s Museums 2010 Interactivity panel “The Changing Face of Technology in Children’s Museums”.

The 3/6/9/12 rule:

No computer screens before age 3, no internet before age 6, no electronic gaming until age 9 and no unsupervised internet before age 12.

“Killer Ring” By Tobias Wong, Photo Courtesy the New York Times

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Tobias Wong. Tobias was a young artist / designer living in New York City. Tobias blurred the lines between Art and Design and made us more aware of the american consumer culture.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/27/style/20100627WONG.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/fashion/27Wong.html

My firm Mark Walhimer Exhibition Design has been hired by the Los Vaqueros Intrpretive Center to create a schematic design for their new exhibits as part of their California Proposition 84 grant proposal.  As I am going through the process I thought it might be interesting to document the steps of the schematic design process.

1. Prior to the first meeting with the client gather general information (review website, admission cost, membership cost, location, demographics of location, museum square footage)
2. First meeting review current museum exhibitions and programs, review current museum objectives and mission, review with floor staff what is working well and not working well, understand desired outcomes of new exhibition
3. While with client create initial sketches and get feedback
4. While with client discuss possible exhibition ideas
5. Photograph current exhibition spaces and space for new exhibition
6. Document findings of first meeting
7. Review meeting notes with client
8. Create photo pages of the current exhibitions and space for new exhibition.  Review objectives as part of photo pages
9. Create style boards, a visual collage representation of the new exhibition
10. Create a Venn diagram of the visitor path and content
11. Review with client, photo pages, style boards and Venn diagram
12. Make revisions to photo pages, style boards and Venn diagram
13. Create framework for final design presentation
14. Create draft exhibition walk-through.  Describe the exhibition visitor experience
15. Create budget framework
16. Create schedule framework
17. Review budget and schedule with client, often it is helpful to review budget and schedule prior to designing exhibition.
18. Draft Schematic design drawings
19. Client feedback
20. Revise budget and schedule with client feedback on drawings
21. Revise drawings
22. Assemble draft schematic design presentation containing; general museum information, exhibition objectives, exhibition walk-through, budget, schedule, schematic drawings, exhibition narrative, Venn Diagram and Style board
23. Review draft design presentation with client
24. Make revisions to design presentation
25. Print out final design presentation either 11″ x 17″ or 8.5″ x 11″
26. One copy for client, one digital copy on CD

The above effort represents between 40 hours ($5000) and 320 hours ($40,000) depending on the exhibition square footage.  In a future post I will share a complete schematic design presentation.

Photo – Current entrance to Interpretive Center