Method

Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, a 2010 exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art, presents eleven architectural projects on five continents that respond to localized needs in underserved communities.

Challenge

Small Scale, Big Change features projects that range from a handmade school in Bangladesh, to an apartheid museum in South Africa, and from a modernist housing project in Paris, to a cable car that connects a single hillside barrio in Caracas to the city at large. The projects are diverse in scope, service, and community, but all share the key belief that design both can and should be used to create positive social change. This endeavor required an interactive experience that showcased the exhibit.

Approach

Working closely with the curators and the Digital Media team, Method created the digital experience that embodied Small Scale, Big Change. Method's challenge was to balance the exhibition as a whole and each project individually, and also define the exhibition and its global context. All eleven projects were of equal importance and had to be surfaced at the same level. The projects needed to be presented as a cohesive group and also be able to stand on their own.

The grid of images, consistent throughout the entire site, becomes a tool for presenting several items at once. At the exhibition level, all projects are seen together. At the project level, images and video are readily available and easily consumed by cycling through the slideshow.

The online, interactive map of projects presents all locations and draws relationships between one another. Seeing their distribution across continents brings a global understanding to the exhibit, while links to each project site in Google maps establish their real space, providing both a global and local context to each building.

Outcome

Small Scale, Big Change runs from October 3 through January 3, 2011. The resulting Small Scale, Big Change exhibition website also appears as a kiosk within the physical exhibition.