Museum Configurations demonstrates how museum space functions cognitively and communicatively and questions whether it can be designed to provide a rich embodied experience, situating displays and their public in felicitous dialogue. Including contributions from authors working in the disciplines of architecture, psychology, museum studies, history and the visual arts, this volume addresses an interdisciplinary audience. The analysis of a wealth of examples shows how the voices of architects, curators and exhibition designers enter into dialogue and invite visitors to make their own connections between physical, cognitive and affective space. Considering how the layout of museums facilitates movement and orientation so that visitors may devote their attention to displays, the book questions what kinds of visual attention characterizes museum experiences and how the design of museum space can support them. In the context of an often dematerialized, atomized, and dissipating contemporary culture, the book proposes that museums can function as shared space that supports enjoyment and learning without being overly didactic. Museum Configurations focuses upon the functions and aims of the design of space. This makes the book particularly interesting to academics and students working in exhibition design and museum architecture, as well as to exhibition designers, curators, and architects.

Museum Configurations demonstrates how museum space functions cognitively and communicatively and questions whether it can be designed to provide a rich embodied experience, situating displays and their public in felicitous dialogue. Including contributions from authors working in the disciplines of architecture, psychology, museum studies, history and the visual arts, this volume addresses an interdisciplinary audience. The analysis of a wealth of examples shows how the voices of architects, curators and exhibition designers enter into dialogue and invite visitors to make their own connections between physical, cognitive and affective space. Considering how the layout of museums facilitates movement and orientation so that visitors may devote their attention to displays, the book questions what kinds of visual attention characterize museum experiences and how the design of museum space can support them. In the context of an often dematerialized, atomized, and dissipating contemporary culture, the book proposes that museums can function as shared space that supports enjoyment and learning without being overly didactic. Museum Configurations focuses upon the functions and aims of the design of space. This makes the book particularly interesting to academics and students working in exhibition design and museum architecture, as well as to exhibition designers, curators, and architects

Researchers in cognitive development are gaining new insights into the ways in which children learn about the world. At the same time, there has been increased recognition of the important role that visits to informal learning institutions plays in supporting learning. Research and practice pursuits typically unfold independently and often with different goals and methods, making it difficult to make meaningful connections between laboratory research in cognitive development and practices in informal education. Recently, groundbreaking partnerships between researchers and practitioners have resulted in innovative strategies for linking findings in cognitive development together with goals critical to museum practitioners, such as exhibit evaluation and design. Cognitive Development in Museum Settings offers an account of ways in which researchers in cognitive development partner with museum practitioners. Each chapter describes a partnership between academic researchers and museum practitioners and details their collaboration, the important research that has resulted from their partnership, and the benefits and challenges of maintaining their relationship. This approach illustrates cutting-edge developmental science, but also considers how researcher-practitioner interactions affect research outcomes and provide insight to questions common to practitioners. In addition, each set of researchers and practitioners discusses issues brought up by the partnership by posing questions concerning research-practice partnerships and research evidence, considering whether and how cognitive development research conducted in museum settings aligns with larger disciplinary interests in that field, and examining to what extent museum practitioners benefit from applying research on the development of cognitive processes to their educational practices.

This state-of-the-art book explores the implications of contemporary trends that are shaping the future of museum experiences. In four separate sections, it looks into how museums are developing dialogical relationships with their audiences, reaching out beyond their local communities to involve more diverse and broader audiences. It examines current practices in involving crowds, not as passive audiences but as active users, co-designers and co-creators; it looks critically and reflectively at the design implications raised by the application of novel technologies, and by museums becoming parts of connected museum systems and large institutional ecosystems. Overall, the book chapters deal with aspects such as sociality, creation and sharing as ways of enhancing dialogical engagement with museum collections. They address designing experiences – including participatory exhibits, crowd sourcing and crowd mining – that are meaningful and rewarding for all categories of audiences involved. Museum Experience Design reflects on different approaches to designing with novel technologies and discusses illustrative and diverse roles of technology, both in the design process as well as in the experiences designed through those processes. The trend of museums becoming embedded in ecosystems of organisations and people is dealt with in chapters that theoretically reflect on what it means to design for ecosystems, illustrated by design cases that exemplify practical and methodological issues in doing so. Written by an interdisciplinary group of design researchers, this book is an invaluable source of inspiration for researchers, students and professionals working in this dynamic field of designing experiences for and around museums.

How can museum educators and higher education tutors enhance the way HE students use museums? There are many examples in the UK of museums and universities working together in productive and innovative ways, but these relationships tend to be based on individual enthusiasm and opportunistic arrangements. Despite the growing importance of museum education departments, higher education tends to be overlooked by museums. This book looks at the interaction between design students and museums, and explores issues, projects and emerging ideas about how museums can better support HE students. It illustrates the general lessons that can be learnt, both strategic and practical, which can help to bring about long-term and constructive relationships between museums and universities in order to enable effective student learning.

Museums are among the iconic buildings of the twenty-first century, as remarkable for their architectural diversity as for the variety of collections they display. But how does the architecture of museums affect our experience as visitors? This book proposes that by seeing space as common ground between architecture and museology, and so between the museum building and its display, we can illuminate the individuality of each museum and the distinctive experience it offers - for example, how some museums create a sense of personal exploration, while others are more intensely didactic, and how the visit in some cases is transformed into a spatial experience and in other cases into a more social event. The book starts with an overview of the history of museum buildings and display strategies, and a discussion of theoretical and critical approaches. It then focuses on specific museums as in-depth case studies, and uses methods of spatial analysis to look at the key design choices available to architects and curators, and their effects on visitors’ behaviour. Theoretically grounded, methodologically original, and richly illustrated, this book will equip students, researchers and professionals in the fields of architecture, museum studies, curating, exhibition design, and cultural studies, with a guide for studying museums and a theoretical framework for their interpretation.

The Future of Museum and Gallery Design explores new research and practice in museum design. Placing a specific emphasis on social responsibility, in its broadest sense, the book emphasises the need for a greater understanding of the impact of museum design in the experiences of visitors, in the manifestation of the vision and values of museums and galleries, and in the shaping of civic spaces for culture in our shared social world. The chapters included in the book propose a number of innovative approaches to museum design and museum-design research. Collectively, contributors plead for more open and creative ways of making museums, and ask that museums recognize design as a resource to be harnessed towards a form of museum-making that is culturally located and makes a significant contribution to our personal, social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Such an approach demands new ways of conceptualizing museum and gallery design, new ways of acknowledging the potential of design, and new, experimental, and research-led approaches to the shaping of cultural institutions internationally. The Future of Museum and Gallery Design should be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students in the fields of museum studies, gallery studies, and heritage studies, as well as architecture and design, who are interested in understanding more about design as a resource in museums. It should also be of great interest to museum and design practitioners and museum leaders.

All museum activities converge in the public forum of the exhibition – regardless of whether the exhibit is held in the physical museum or is on the Web. Since the first edition of this book in 2002, there has been a world-wide explosion of new galleries and exhibition halls, and new ideas about how exhibitions should look and communicate. The definition of what an exhibition is has changed as exhibitions can now be virtual; non-traditional migratory and pop-up spaces play host to temporary displays; social media has created amazing opportunities for participatory engagement and shifted authority away from experts to the public; and as time-constrained audiences demand more dynamic, interactive, and mobile applications, museum leadership, managers, staff, and designers are rising to these challenges in innovative ways. Drawing on years of experience and top-flight expertise, Barry Lord and Maria Piacente detail the exhibition process in a straightforward way that can be easily adapted by institutions of any size. They explore the exhibition development process in greater detail, providing the technical and practical methodologies museum professionals need today. They’ve added new features and expanded chapters on project management, financial planning and interactive multimedia while retaining the essential content related to interpretive planning, curatorship, and roles and responsibilities. This second edition of the standby Manual of Museum Exhibitions is arranged in four parts: Why – Covering the purpose of exhibits, where exhibit ideas come from, and how to measure success Where – Covering facilities and spaces, going into details including security, and interactive spaces What – A look at both permanent collection displays, and non-collection displays, as well as virtual, participatory, temporary, travelling displays, and retail sales How – Who is involved, planning, curatorship, and content development, design, multimedia, fabrication and installation, financial planning, and project management Over 130 figures and photographs illustrate every step of the exhibit process. No museum can be without this critical, detailed guide to an essential function.

Collating the views of international museum professionals, architects, designers and academics, this book highlights the complexity and significance of museum space, studies recent developments in museum architecture and exhibition design.