Situ Studio is designing the New York Hall of Science’s new, 10,000 sq. ft. exhibition space titled Design Lab. Design Lab will be a facilitated exhibition/program space, with a series of five areas created to support visitors in an iterative, creative design process. The new space will be in the heart of the historic 1964 NYSCI building in the space currently called the Lower Central Pavilion. The project will open to the public in March 2014.

The five areas operate at different scales and they are dispersed throughout the plan: the sandbox, the backstage theatre, the dollhouse, the fort, and the tree-house. These flexible areas don’t just provide space for building and testing, but also support problem ideation and displaying results. In Design Lab, identifying a problem you find worth solving and sharing and reflecting on design ideas and divergent solutions is as important to learning as the design work itself. The design of the exhibition space inspires a DIY sensibility in the visitors and helps them look at the materials around them in new ways. The visual vocabulary is playful, yet sophisticated, evoking imaginative experiences of childhood, but reframing it toward new possibilities.