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The interactive estuary
Cleethorpes Borough Council needed a new visitor attraction that would appeal to holidaymakers and family visitors, be a valuable resource for schools, and encourage people to take an active interest in the wildlife of the adjacent Humber Estuary. The Discovery Centre opened in September 1995 and my Estuary exhibition continued until December 1999. The first floor was entirely devoted to a fully interactive exhibition, including speacial sound and lighting effects, pushbutton electronics, computers, feely-holes, interactive aquaria containing local sea creatures, and even a crawl-through lugworm burrow. The observatory remains in use on the second floor, with my tough, powerful telescopes trained on the nearby flocks of feeding seabirds out on the shore. Rationale The following is an article by Ian Russell, published in Heritage Development magazine, October 1995: Cleethorpes Borough Council's new Discovery Centre was opened on the southern shore of the Humber Estuary by TV wildlife personality Chris Packham, on September 24th this year. My company (Interactive Science Ltd) was introduced to Cleethorpes Borough Council by the architect (Marson Rathbone Taylor) and the firm who set up the National Fishing Heritage Centre in neighbouring Grimsby (Leisure Solutions). The brief was to design in detail a fully interactive exhibition that would increase awareness and understanding of local environmental aspects of the Humber Estuary. It was to cater for the needs of the general public, especially families, as well as schools : carefully balancing the need for popular appeal without compromising its educational integrity. Having once upon a time been a marine biologist and public aquarium designer, this one was right up my street! We also helped the client with a successful appeal for financial sponsorship from local industry, prepared tender documents and kept extremely close contact with the appointed contractors while they fabricated and installed the exhibition to our specifications. Ambience It was to be more than just a matter of developing a set of interactive experiences that would attract attention, stimulate the senses and "sell" a message. On their own, those are merely the traditional recipe for a fairground.
My hugely successful "crawl-through lugworm burrow", with talking lugworm! People leave any interpretive exhibition having picked up more than the cognitive-learning equivalent of a coconut and a short-lived goldfish. They haven't just absorbed facts. The way they feel about the subject of the exhibition has been influenced as well . . . for good or bad. An exhibition's subtle "ambience" can easily be overlooked and spoilt once the design process focuses on individual exhibits. It was important to develop awareness of the existence of that beautiful, primeval expanse of sand, sea and sky right next to the Discovery Centre. Floor-to-ceiling photographic landscape images provide the background. The evocative sounds of water lapping on sand and the distant calls of estuary birds play softly from carefully positioned speakers. There is also a slight, localised whiff of a "mud smell" as you enter. At the opposite scale but even more awesome, we wanted the beauty, variety and intricate complexity of the small life-forms, teeming out there in truly astronomical numbers, to break through people's "creepy crawly" barrier and induce an appropriate sense of real reverence. We included plenty of good quality colour images and wildlife models. Principal colours are soft earth-tones. The floor is carpeted. All shapes are well-rounded with generously radiused corners and edges. Many of the graphics are circular. Displayed text is non-intimidating. It is kept to an absolute minimum, fully illustrated, and carefully designed for maximum readability by young children without making adults feel patronised. Even though it gets very busy at times, the Discovery Centre really is a pleasant, relaxing space to be in. That seems to improve people's ability to concentrate on one exhibit at a time and reduce the well-known "pin-ball effect" seen in more fairground-like interactive exhibitions. It also quietens children. The exhibits are also deliberately positioned to avoid straight runways and prevent children from picking up speed.
My indestructible "whisper-tubes" Identifying themes Totally unlike conventional interpretive work, designing a fully interactive exhibition is not like "telling a story". It's more like packing a picnic hamper, whose hidden surprises will be enjoyed later by others in unforseeable order, and with pure sensual indulgence thoughtfully balanced against healthy nourishment. There is no set route through the exhibition. People need to feel relaxed about wandering around encountering things for themselves. It was necessary to divide the Discovery Centre into themed "clusters" of carefully juxtaposed exhibits. However randomly each visitor's route zig-zagged across the exhibition floor-plan, adjacent exhibits were to relate to each other, and it was always to be clear what they were "about". The six main sections are as follows. OUR ESTUARY, beside the entrance. ESTUARY BIRDS, the largest section. NATURE DETECTIVE WORK, dealing with the difficulty that, unlike watching some TV wildlife documentary, real estuary wildlife does not always parade photogenically up and down in front of the untrained viewer. LIVING MUD, presenting an ambitious but much-needed public-relations campaign on behalf of what is arguably the most productive and undervalued wildlife habitat in the entire British Isles. BEYOND THE SHORE, including three "interactive" marine aquarium tanks with living flatfish, shrimps and grey mullet observed by means of a steerable spotlight beam, a sliding lens, and a pair of "infinity mirrors WEB OF LIFE, illuminated solely by ultraviolet light, with glowing fluorescent features, colourful backlit photographs and a dazzling fibre-optic "web" with softly changing colours.
Bird's-eye view Exhibit design approach The Discovery Centre design brief called for minimum exhibit maintenance despite maximum interactivity. To keep running costs down, no on-site repair workshop was contemplated and there would be little or no continuous staff supervision of the exhibition. Added to that challenge was the relatively small pool of existing exhibit ideas because biology and environmental science are pretty well neglected in conventional "science centres".
Peep-holes with whisper-tubes The right kind of "ambience" together with models, images, thought-provoking questions and exceptionally sensitive use of electronics and sound had to be the principal key for immersing and involving the visitor. Many people fail to realise that properly designed computer exhibits can be particularly maintenance-free features. Three were developed, each securely housed in an identical console fitted with four push-buttons and a low stool, and differing only in the software and the graphics panel above the screen. With the ever-dropping prices of modern PCs and the economy of fabricating three identical housings, these exhibits were not disproportionately expensive and are future-proof enough for sophisticated software upgrades for years to come. We produced three short, good-looking, colourfully illustrated programmes, each designed to amuse and inform for no more than five minutes. Although it has to satisfy the needs of schools and "unaccompanied adults", family groups are the main customers of the Discovery Centre. We set out to design a hierarchy of experiences and meaning at every single part of the display, helping families enjoy things together despite wide age-ranges.
Interactive aquaria: live shrimps under a sliding magnifier The building offers full wheelchair access and so do all the exhibits apart from the talking lugworm and crawl-through burrow. As well as the eleven different "whisper-tubes", partially sighted people are able to make special use of push-button bird-calls, touch-sculpture bird models, and the flaps and feely-holes which each trigger their own different sounds when handled. Interactive exhibits with a high level of popular appeal can be low on relevant information content. In the same way, educationally "worthy" interactives often attract little interest and are ignored. Exhibits were only included if they satisfied both these criteria, unless they also fulfilled some other clear function. The Real Thing Every interpretive exhibition needs to forge the clearest possible links with The Real Thing, and here the Discovery Centre has a major advantage. Up on the second floor is an observatory with large windows commanding an unexpected panorama spanning the entire mouth of the Humber Estuary as well as the adjacent shore which is officially a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Impressive numbers of wading birds feed or fly around in full view. In the observatory is an array of immensely robust, swivel-mounted, hands-on, x20 telescopes, together with simple bird-identification graphics.
Robust, hands-on telescopes The Discovery Centre was never intended as a stand-alone experience. Everything in it is intended to stimulate active participation afterwards. Next we are developing leaflets and trails relating to bird-watching, ship-spotting and beach-combing and Cleethorpes Borough Council are looking closely at ways of integrating the Centre with their Ranger Service. Well received The whole design process for this exhibition has itself been highly "interactive", with prolonged collaboration between designers (my company, Interactive Science Ltd.), architects (Marson Rathbone Taylor), and contractors(Twydell). As well as all the 2-D and 3-D exhibition design work, Interactive Science Ltd. undertook full responsibility for sourcing the sound systems, software, wildlife models, telescopes, aquarium systems and livestock and all the interactive electronic circuitry. Subsequently, Twydell demonstrated a useful ability to interpret and discuss the details of our drawings intelligently, as it is always preferable to be able to finalise some aspect or other of a complex interactive exhibit during its actual fabrication. The Discovery Centre has been gratifyingly well received by the public, with the first month's attendance figures far better than expected, despite an Autumn opening. This project is sufficiently innovative to be of interest to developers of other "environmental" exhibitions. Perhaps the Discovery Centre might inspire you to pay Cleethorpes a visit. That, after all, was one reason for Cleethorpes Borough Council commissioning it in the first place! (NOTE: Most parts of my estuary exhibition were replaced in December 1999.)
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