Museum Visioning + Programming

Planning a digitally-based institution into a brick-and-mortar sensory experience

For twenty years, the National Women’s History Museum served as the largest online cultural institution dedicated to women’s history. The Museum wanted to expand its reach by establishing a brick and mortar establishment.

Background

The two-phase project began with a Visioning kickoff and workshop followed by museum planning and the creation of materials for stakeholder presentations and fundraising.

Challenge

Working with Studio Joseph, my contributions in phase 1 included planning the 2-day workshop and designing the workshop presentation, exercises, and assets. During this time, I also contributed research into cultural precedents, museum programming, design precedents, and thematic content including identity, equity, and place.

During phase 2, my team and I were able to build off the visioning workshops. I contributed to the museum programming while my team designed conceptual spatial renderings. With these assets and additional content composed by the Museum, I designed a series of printed and digital decks for various stakeholder leadership meetings.

Accomplishments

In preparation for the Visioning workshops, my team and I developed decks of “priority” cards. These cards contained precedents from a variety of color-coded categories, including spatial design, exhibition, programming, and amenities. These cards became part of a workshop exercise that helped participants visually articulate their desires for the new space and its offerings.

The priority cards in use during the Visioning workshop.

As a way to get workshop participants thinking about the needs and interests of different demographics, I developed a series of personas. During the workshop, each participant received a different persona and had to develop a program based on their assigned person.

What is the one thing that the National Women’s History Museum should be known for? We asked workshop participants to create a signature offering without any budgetary constraints as a creative way to open the discussion.

To help educate workshop participants, my team and I created a deck that contained a breakdown of museum planning and which aspects we would be examining further.

A slide from the Visioning deck that showed an introduction into our research on relevant themes and corresponding precedents.

A slide from our post-visioning stakeholder presentations showing a potential site within Union Station. The floor plans are broken up by zones based on the workshop feedback.

A slide from our post-visioning stakeholder presentations showing a way of organizing thematic content based on visioning discussions.

A slide from our fundraising deck.

Examples of Process + Deliverables

Because of the solid research, planning, and conceptual development, The National Women’s History Museum has been able to return to our model and pivot to thinking about traveling exhibitions and different building locations during the pandemic. The agile assets have transitioned to help garner further fundraising during this transitional time.

Museum Visioning + Programming

Planning a digitally-based institution into a brick-and-mortar sensory experience

Client

Visioning Phase

Team

Background

Challenge

Accomplishments

Examples of Process + Deliverables

Outcomes