Future of Museums

Futures thinking applied to the design of office furniture!

The future of sustainablity museums structures may benefit from: asphalt that re-sets itself with a dose of induction heating, concrete that patches up crack with the help of its living bacterial aggregate, and a recent discovery that some metals have self-healing properties.

What can museums do to help even out the gap in educational opportunities?

Gee, LA is still trying to get much of its underground transportation built, while London is looking to re-purpose old, unused tunnels. Among the possible uses imagined for these spaces is a National Fire Brigade Museum.

Some useful language that echoes the definition and examples of third spaces that we've been working with.

Nothing in California made the list of Great Places, but maybe we can help change that!

Would you buy art from a vending machine?  What would you buy from a vending machine in a museum store?

Is it possible to reverse-engineer this trend in museums by recasting "traditional" exhibitions and programs for a younger audience by promoting them using youth-oriented aesthetics?

Museums improve well-being similar to playing a sport! That's it...from now on I can answer all sport/exercise-related questions with "I go to museums!"

Excellent summary of this year's Ice Bucket challenge and some questions about the future impact of such fundraising tactics. Most interesting: Will the success of the ice bucket challenge create a culture of giving that is not strategic and not directed to where the greatest needs are?

Referring to an exhibition called "Third Space: Inventing the Possible" set to open at North Miami's Museum of Contemporary Art, Director M'Bow said, "The Third Space is how people in hard times create a space that is no longer bounded by limitations."

Among younger Americans who did read at least one book, the median or typical number read in the past year was 10, but they seems to value libraries less than older adults.

I love this quote with "city" replaced by "museum": Yet the aspirations of a [museum] can also be measured in smaller scraps of land - the remnant spaces that often are blighted or ignored, but with imaginative design and care have the potential to be destinations.

Using pavement squares designed to replace concrete paving slabs, Pavegen squares generate energy as people walk across them. Light a building? Power an exhibition?

"More of the news we are likely to consume today is visually driven," he says. "A lot of knowledge is non-verbal." How do we use powerful images to convey knowledge and feeling, not just illustrate?

How much should cities balance infrastructure development with spending to lure new cultural institutions to their cities?

Yes, we need to "woo" all our visitors, but is this really the way to "woo" millennials? I doubt if this approach would impress many of my millennial friends (and I have a bunch of 20-somethings who are good friends).