The Univerity of Arizona – Arizona Natural Resources Museum (ANRM)
Museum Planning, LLC was hired by the University of Arizona to create a museum plan to guide the building’s renovation and construction. Work included building design, audience research, schematic exhibition design, and stakeholder feedback.
Opening Date: Fall 2025
Square Footage: Approximately 12,000 (? Confirm) square feet of exhibits (30,000 square feet total)
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The Museum website was created by Museum Planning, LLC https://arizona-resources.org/
Nature & Tech Technology Museum
“Not a box of rocks”
Introduction:
The natural world is real-life magic. Transformations are happening all around us: river to cloud, element to mineral, bone to fossil. The new Arizona Nature and Tech Museum will reveal the spells behind the enchantments, allowing visitors to experience hands-on the processes that create the world around them, as well as their ability to shape those processes. It will allow visitors to recognize their own role in the natural world, and how their actions are affecting it.
The new Nature and Tech is an interactive nature and conservation center, a digital student virtual environment, and student in-school programming. This is an anti-museum: visitor-centric, with shared authority and co-creation of content. No longer a box of rocks, it will move the experience into your hands. The new mixed-reality experience will move beyond the physical location. It will be available on your smartphone, at home, and as an in-classroom resource for students, teachers, and parents.
The historic building forms a graceful base from which the new experience will rise. Using the tremendous resources of the University of Arizona, the vast collection of the Arizona Museum of Minerals and Nature Education, and teacher and school superintendent feedback, Nature and Tech will be a new type of experience, unlike anything else, placing the magic and the power in the hands of the visitors.
The Arizona Nature and Technology Museum will include:
- Highly interactive exhibits and displays, many with a digital component
- Outdoor science playground
- Maker Space
- Virtual exhibits
- Materials lab
- Library
- Online museum
- Children’s area
- Demonstration stage
Museum Assessment:
Community Feedback:
Design:
Virtual Museum:
- Early childhood photo puzzle
- Dig a boulder and place on a conveyor belt
Strategic Plan:
Operational Plan:
Budget:
Schedule:
Final Presentation:
Website:
Project Deliverable: Visitor experience schematic design (including 4-6 renderings of the interior and exterior exhibits), a digital model (combination of photos and Blender models) of the interior and exterior with interactivity and business and strategic planning of the Museum.
https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=ewt1GHPiqcf
https://monaverse.com/spaces/bluedrop