Marbles Kids Museum - Around Town Exhibit
project type: museums
Marbles is the product of a merger between two children’s museums in Raleigh, NC: Playspace and Exploris. Located in the old Exploris building in the heart of downtown Raleigh, Marbles is an energetic kid’s museum that is targeted to children 0-12. Design Dimension designed the “Around Town” gallery of the museum, located on the first floor. Creatively reworked existing components from Playspace (fire station, hospital, and cafe) were combined with freshly designed exhibits (infant area, farmer’s market, stables, garden, tree house, post office, southern porch, train tables, theater stage and behind the scenes dress-up and prop room) to create a visually exciting arena for play.
Our commitment to Playspace began when Mike Cindric and his wife, Susan Toplikar, co-taught an exhibit design studio at NC State College of Design in 2003, and led their class to makeover the humble children’s museum in downtown Raleigh. The students built new exhibit components, designed and fabricated new signage, and unified the existing and new exhibits by introducing a vibrant “Playspace-inspired” color palette. The passion and enthusiasm the students poured into their work was overwhelming, and was made possible with donated materials from local businesses.
The philosophy that played a role in making a magical storybook ending for Playspace was adopted in the merger of Playspace and Exploris. The museum formerly known as Exploris was buzzing with volunteers from the community; artists, designers, architects, contractors, painters and builders all committed to seeing the new museum emerge as a butterfly on September 29, 2007.