Category Museum

Grand Rapids, MI

Xibitz’ experience with interactive elements was influential in the success of this project for GRAM (Grand Rapids Art Museum). The team worked closely with GRAM to design and fabricate five interactive experiences that were unique to the art community and allow people of all ages to be educated by and interact with concepts in the art world.

These elements were designed and created to be durable and flexible, allowing GRAM the ability to continuously use and relocate these interactives in their environment. The space includes five exhibits. The first includes two “make-and-take” tables where the museum can rotate various hands-on interactives to allow visitors to make their own creations and take them home. The second is “Build Like a Sculptor,” where a series of Velcro-wrapped beams and cubes allow visitors to create their own abstract sculptures. The third includes two “Landscape Layers” tables, where visitors can interchange “slides” of disparate landscapes with varying transparency to create unique layered looks. The fourth, “Color Mixing,” includes a trio of spinning cylinders with a variety of color patterns from the CMYK spectrum that encourages visitors to discover how new colors are created. Finally, the “Think Like a Curator” exhibit asks visitors to select both paintings and frames to “curate” their own gallery on a blank, magnetic wall.

Flint, MI

Xibitz partnered with Peter Hyde Design, Blue Telescope and Electrosonic to design and fabricate four galleries for the Sloan Museum of Discovery. This work includes the Discovery Hall, Hagerman Street Early Childhood Gallery, the History Gallery, and the Durant Vehicle Gallery.

Elements of Xibitz’s hands-on installations include an interactive automobile assembly line allowing visitors to participate in the car assembly process. Multiple interactive experiences such as a 3-D Periodic table with a touch-screen kiosk in Sloan’s Discovery Hall gallery. Visitors select which compound they would like to produce and drag the elements into the touch-screen beaker. Then, the periodic table lights-up with all of the elements to produce the final product. Hagerman Street Early Childhood Gallery features an interactive ambulance, with lights, sirens, warning systems and a large flat screen integrated into the design. Also in this space is a 3-story climbing experience in the form of a tree-house with multiple “peek-a-boo” boxes on each floor. The History Gallery features an av system installed by Xibitz that is trigged by a visitor walking onto the “Story Stones” placed along the floor. As guests walk into the gallery, they are taken on a journey through the history of the city, guided by a carpet design representing the Flint River.

Hickory Corners, MI

The Gilmore Car Museum, open to the public since July 31, 1966,  portrays a timeline of rich automobile history and progression with a diverse collection of time-period vehicles throughout their sprawling campus. Xibitz was brought on for the ride, alongside design partner Good Design Group, to create interactive experiences that illustrate the impact of the assembly line on the manufacturing of modern cars. The interactive exhibit allows users to choose parts from buckets to assemble there own mini version of a car,  while racing against the clock that enforces the revolutionary process of the assembly line on automotive production. The newly fashioned cars are then placed on a track to determine which design is the fastest.

The Gilmore Car Museum leaves car enthusiasts and visitors with a sense of pride in the accomplishments of our progressive culture. It inspires hopefulness that future automotive inventions will be even more imaginative than we thought was possible.