We have had great opportunities to collaborate!
Children’s Museum of the Magic Valley
Design team members: Alissa, Doug, Allison, Jill, Dean
A dynamic board of directors, and an amazing team of volunteers, is bringing a Children’s Museum to Twin Falls, Idaho. With exhibits featuring the landscape, culture, business and art of the Mountain West, CMMV will be a STEAM-focused destination for children and families. This downtown location will include the Snake River Canyon water exhibit, the Fire Lookout, the Kids’ Kitchen, the Dream Ship climber, and Idaho’s most comprehensive Maker Space.
The Implementation Plan created by our team now guides the project, including design phasing, hiring timelines, architectural programming, fundraising milestones, and construction schedules.
KidsQuest Children’s Museum
Collaborative team members: Alissa, Allison, Jill, Dean, Jessica
KidsQuest opened in 2005 in Factoria Mall, and moved to downtown Bellevue, WA in 2017. Both spaces achieves record growth as soon as they were launched bringing immersive play, art, history and STEM activities to hundreds of thousands of children and their families over the past fifteen years. Members of the FRAME team - including five members of PNW Children’s Museum Collaborative - have served as trusted advisors, providing architecture, exhibit design, graphic design, evaluation, and logo/identity design to this innovative and dynamic museum.
Photo by Lisa Merrill, used with permission of KQCM. Work shown completed with MIG|Portico as prime consultant. Additional KQCM project work ongoing, with Collaborative members consulting via FRAME.
REEF
Environmental Education Foundation
Collaborative team members: Alissa, Allison, Doug, Jill, Dean
REEF has been a champion for the oceans for over 30 years. At their new world-class Center, opening in 2025, visitors will explore 4,000 square feet of exhibit space with galleries, classrooms, and lab spaces. Interactive exhibits will tell the stories of REEF’s international citizen science initiatives , and create opportunities for visitors to connect to the ocean, regardless of age, ability or background.
Rendering by Karoo Design Visualization 2024
Wood River Museum
of History & Culture
Collaborative team members: Alissa, Allison, Doug, Jill, Dean
A 32-foot-long LIDAR mural of the Wood River watershed in central Idaho greets every visitor to the new Wood River Museum of History and Culture in Ketchum. This community-based museum centers the diverse experiences that unfold in this specific landscape, along its rushing waters and amid its craggy mountains.
The 3500-square foot museum opened in July 2023 with four galleries of dynamic, changing exhibits. Each exhibit explores a different aspect of life here: how one mountain can shape a community’s identity; how different cultures come to call this place home; how the Idaho landscape shaped Ernest Hemingway’s literary voice; and the ongoing, contemporary and historical relationship of the region’s first people—the Shoshone-Bannock—with this land.
Photo by PK Gibeon Photography, Inc., used with permission.
Discovery Children’s Museum
Collaborative team members: Jill, Alissa, Jessica, Dean
The Discovery Children’s Museum of Las Vegas celebrated their tenth anniversary, and the leadership decided to assess their current exhibits and align every area of their exhibit gallery with their Strategic Plan. The Exhibit Master Plan, developed by Jill, Alissa, Jessica, and Dean, provided a road-map for implementation of updates, modifications and additions.
Galleries were reviewed for visitor engagement, maintenance load, capacity for increased visitation, and innovative delivery of the museum’s messages. Recommendations were developed based on the scores, as well as extensive discussion with staff and focus groups. A series of significant design projects are now underway, including the redesign of the exciting (but operationally challenging!) Summit Climber.
Subsequent work with Turner Exhibits has set the stage for a gorgeous new climber, taking visitors From the Desert to the Stars!
National Women’s Hall of Fame
Collaborative team members: Alissa, Allison, Doug, Jill, Dean
The National Women’s Hall of Fame, in Seneca Falls, NY is expanding its space and its scope, developing the beautiful and historic Seneca Knitting Mill. We developed an Implementation Plan for the renovation of their new home, as well as in Introductory Exhibit that opened on the ground floor.
The exhibit provides a cohesive visitor experience, introducing tourists, locals and donors to the larger project, and highlighting the amazing women featured in the Hall of Fame. The exhibits use materials, colors and finishes that reference the manufacturing and industrial history of the building and surrounding town.
Photo by NWHF, used with permission. Work shown completed with MIG|Portico as prime consultant. Additional NWHF project and planning work ongoing, with Collaborative members consulting via FRAME.
Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum
Collaborative team members: Alissa, Allison, Doug, Jill, Dean
Located at Pearl Harbor, in Honolulu, the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum tells the story of “The Silent Service,” from World War II to today. Through a series of galleries, featuring the science, technology, strategy and social impacts of submarines and the sailors who operate them, artifacts make the ideas real and AV installations immerse visitors of all ages in the incredible stories of service. Even the smallest visitors are welcomed!
Exhibits convey what life is actually like on extended and secretive missions beneath the world’s oceans, through voices of past and present submariners. The events and lessons of history, as viewed through the eyes of a select group of people with a truly unique perspective, are brought to life and applied to questions that inform our shared present and future.
Photo by Allison CraigSundine. Work shown completed with MIG|Portico as prime consultant. Additional work with PSFM ongoing, with Collaborative Members consulting.