Experience Design Exhibit by AU Department of Industrial Design at Rahmi Koç Museum
09.05.2023

 The outputs of the project titled “Experience Design for Museums and Exhibitions”, conducted within the scope of the cooperation protocol between Atılım University Department of Industrial Design and Ankara Rahmi M. Koç Museum are now on display.

The designs successfully completed by the fourth year students of the Department of Industrial Design began welcoming visitors on May 5, 2023, at the temporary exhibition hall at Ankara Rahmi M. Koç Museum.  The designs by the designer teams “Donanmacılar”, “Mohair”, “Missio”, Müzede 1 Gece”, “Sepya” and “Sof” will remain on display until May 21, 2023. 

The Evolving Concept of “Museum”, and Experience Design

Museums, protectors of the cultural memory, have been evolving towards having visitors as participants rather than viewers, and towards offering richer experiences where visitors interact with the items on display, as well as with one another. In other words, museums are now evolving to become community-oriented, rather than collection-oriented. The key difference between traditional and interactive museums is that, with the latter, the flow of information from museums to the visitor is catered towards offering experiences of creation, consumption, discussion, and collaboration among diverse, multi-dimensional sets of visitors, rather than towards designing quality content for the consumption of visitors.  With this goal in mind, students were requested to create projects for the Ankara Rahmi M. Koç Museum experience where new values would emerge for participants, projects that would encourage visitors to connect with the content, and allow for the social participation of visitors.

While designing museum experiences, students took into consideration the personal context that involved the previous experiences, motivations, and values of visitors; as well as the sociocultural context that covered the cultural background and social interactions, and physical factors. Moreover, designers aimed to transfer the “global design principles” to their museum experience designs, to create experiences offering inclusion, and variety.