News
New England Aquarium Exhibit Master Plan Boston, MA
BIA.studio is working with the New England Aquarium on a comprehensive exhibit master plan to improve and enhance the overall visitor experience of the aquarium’s exhibit path. The master plan is tasked with strengthening and deepening the visitor experience by re-orchestrating the layers of interaction offered by the aquarium. This includes improving live animal exhibits throughout and integrating other layers of experience that will engage their visitor’s senses of sight, touch, smell and sounds. The project is informed by a recently adopted “Action Plan” which calls for refocusing the aquarium around the themes of “discovery” and “lasting change.”
The master plan is also tasked with identifying the “learning profiles” of different visitor categories, and identifying how the aquarium experience can be improved to meet the desired outcomes of each group. The planning process will identify and evaluate different visitor perspectives and, in response, develop rich experiences along each individual’s exploration path. By offering visitors more engaging animals and deeper layers of experience, the aquarium seeks to inspire its visitors and increase the frequency of repeat visitation and membership.
New England Aquarium Exterior Master Plan Programming Boston, MA
The New England Aquarium has engaged BIA.studio to develop a program for the exterior master plan of the Central Wharf Campus. The intent of the project is to programmatically link the exterior environment of Central Wharf to the Aquarium’s new “Action Plan,” which will refocus the aquarium’s mission around the themes of discovery and lasting change. Making use of BIA's Change by Design techniques, the programming process identifies the desired outcomes of each stakeholder group and utilizes their feedback to “score” the importance of outcomes based on the relative level of importance (for success) and current level of satisfaction for a given outcome. This process results in a list of prioritized outcomes that will be used to steer and evaluate the subsequent master planning process.
