while I was in DC for the Apollo 50th anniversary celebrations I spent the day
at Smithsonian exhibits Smithsonian exhibits plans designs and builds
exhibits for many of the Smithsonian museums and offices that create public
facing exhibitions and of course they don't just design and build the exhibits
they install them as well Chris --mo Head of Production talked to
me about how his team is actually working on installation before they even
start a build all right Chris so the exhibit gets conceived it gets written
it gets designed it gets executed and built and then it's time to put it in
the museum and install it and that's the easy part right we hope but not always
it's obviously I'm leading I would imagine there's a whole new set of
problems to solve once the exhibits done and needing to be
installed we actually start working on the install even before we build a thing
we we will go access what's the smallest door it's got to fit through not every
museum's got a giant freight door giant freight elevator so we go to the site
early we do site survey we understand the load-in route and what it's going to
mean to even get it off the truck sometimes we're loading in the street
and carrying it in so you we start early on eventually or any of the the shop
drawings or technical drawings are done we have to gather all that information
then we will build the thing but we end up setting it up in this space we'll do
trial setups tech setups where we will put all the components we build together
we'll do finishing steps will pre install as much as we can we try to
arrive at the site with basically a kit of finished parts right that we're just
assembling together we're doing very little construction on site that's the
goal we don't always get there that's the goal so this we're looking at this
particle board oval here on the floor is this exactly that is it you specking
something out for how big it's gonna be this is a template that we have created
we're about to build four oval pods for project this is a template that we've
done a full-scale so we can start to understand the size of the pod and start
to understand relationships between walls will be and we have these
cantilever cantilever headers that are out on the two long ends of it so we're
trying to get the special relationships down before we go any farther with the
model and I would imagine that seeing things full-size like that would affect
every other departments decisions graphics etc its feedback for those
departments this one's got a heavy graphic component to it so if you've
ever done anything with radius or the circles radius changes have a big impact
on width along that arc yes so now we've got an oval which kind of complicates it
a little bit but determining graphic sizes you have to do the physical build
in order to really nail that stuff down if you want really tight fits you can't
really do it on paper even with the computers it gets a little hard to know
exactly so we have to develop this stuff in stages and there's feedback loops to
graphics to final art and all that and it works hand in hand all the way along
are there occasionally early stages where you'll just run over grab a few
sheets of Gator board or cardboard and run them on the table saw and slap them
together we tape just to see you know we will do full-scale mock-ups of parts
we'll do two or three if we need to as we develop it how at this stage in
career in your career are you still sometimes surprised when you mock
something up in full size and see it constantly yes matter how long I've
looked at the drawing and look at size references when it's in front of me it's
always different thing you thought you always learned something you didn't know
before obviously the goal is to get on site with a kit for install that's
really straightforward but how often do you get on site and discover oh wow this
wall has a slight bend in it or little weed that obviously something like that
would be rare but it does happen though and you know true plumb square flat
planes perpendicular planes you can never assume that you're gonna have any
of that we have to build we have to build all of the compensation for this
stuff into the structure we're building if you've got a long structure and the
floor it's going to drift out it's got to be level or it's at least got to be
in a plane that follows the floor so you have to anticipate all this stuff ahead
of time you have to install leveling feet we have to have a method of doing
all this there's a thing that happens in San Francisco specifically yes which is
you can never build shelves in San Francisco that are level because if you
make them level they won't look level because none of the buildings right now
those are servers I did one where I've built it in my girlfriend at the time
was I built shelves for her and her shop in her basement it's just like they're
not love my guys sweetie they're totally level she's like no and I showed her but
the problem was the basement was like this so I had to make them off square to
make them look right that probably happened it does it does mostly we have
problems with them the floors not being flat right and over the length of the
exhibit things tend to drift down they drift up so you just basically have to
do that a lot of times we'll construct with bases the kick will be a slayer all
its own we lay the kick down we get all the kicks put together get them all
level then we set all the cabinetry or all the walls all the rest of the
structure on top of that so so the kick is the border but they said that that
four inch layer that hits the floor that's got the like the kick face on it
so it's that level on it easy to get that all level than in place then we
just drop all components in on top of that and it goes very fast if you do it
that way it's much harder if you're bringing whole big units in and trying
to get it all flushed up and tight joints and all that well I also imagine
you're working with many different kinds of walls
some of them historic as you can't necessarily places where we can't
actually touch the wall or connect to the wall at all so everything's got to
be self-supporting anything that's questionable of course gets engineered
out to make sure it's not gonna fall over right right and all of that but
yeah there's lots of considerations you have that you have five considerations
of that you have a DA consideration a movement through the space as well
mostly that is addressed in the design under things you know obviously we're
building what's design but a DA is a big thing we do a lot of work in that area
we've got some projects that we are doing that are um basically our research
or kind of prototype project for working on
88 yeah a visually impaired stuff you know we do a lot of different things in
that area I love the idea that you build these foam core mock-ups there's a
picture that we found when we were doing research for a project of the original
mercury capsules before they started building the real one they mocked up a
dozen different sizes and designs of a capsule in plywood and there's a picture
of a warehouse in California who's always yeah and it looks so rudimentary
because it is but of course even at the highest level of engineering you still
have to see it in order to understand how to engage when the idea becomes real
in a material you're gonna learn something and amazing I really
appreciate it thank you so much thank you so such a fun journey and seeing
what you guys do and it looks like you're all still having a lot of fun
yeah I wouldn't do it if I wasn't