Seward, Alaska

The Kenai Fjords National Park visitor center highlights the park’s land, ecology, wildlife, and human history, focusing on the Harding Icefield and nearby glaciers and fjords of this unique and rapidly changing landscape.

Outside, visitors can’t miss the life-size sculpture of a breaching Humpback whale adjacent to the visitor center’s entrance. Inside, the exhibits feature a scenic recreation of Kenai’s rocky shore, habitat murals with underwater dioramas, a life-size climbable model of a killer whale fin, and an interactive wall that identifies six interconnected park habitats. The exhibits also feature the human history of the Kenai Peninsula developed in collaboration with Alaska Native partners. Also on display is a modern-day version of a traditional Sugpiaq kayak built by high school students in nearby Kodiak.

Client: National Park Service

Media: Northern Light Productions, Allston, MA
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: Southern Custom Exhibits, Anniston, AL

Size: 2,000 sq. ft.
Cost: $1.3 million
Completion: Spring 2019

Chicago, Illinois

The American Writers Museum is the first national museum in the United States dedicated to celebrating American writers and exploring their influences on our history, identity, culture, and daily lives.

The American Writers Museum is both an idea and a place. It is a vibrant, experiential center that offers visitors myriad ways to engage with American writers, and it is a hub for a national discourse on writers and writing. The museum covers the breadth and range of American writers through unexpected, in-depth, immersive, and hands-on exhibits.

Amaze Design managed a team of over fifty scholars and subject matter experts to develop the content for the museum. Additionally, Amaze was responsible for all design, research, media production, fabrication, and installation accomplished through collaborative partnerships with an exceptional team.

Client: American Writers Museum Foundation

Media Design:  
Northern Light Productions, Allston, MA
Silver Oaks Communications, Moline, IL
Avi Paul Weinstein, Watertown, MA

Lighting Design: 
Available Light, Boston, MA

Exhibit Fabrication:
Chicago Scenic Studios, Chicago, IL

Size: 11,000 sq.ft.
Budget: $10 million
Completion: 2017

Dallas, Texas

“Legacy Hall,” at the Perot Family’s new Turtle Creek office building in Dallas, is a one-of-a-kind private museum designed to house the art, artifacts, gifts, awards, mementos, and memorabilia amassed by H. Ross Perot over his lifetime. Mr. Perot’s collection exceeds 6,500 objects.

Amaze Design and team surveyed and cataloged Mr. Perot’s archives, then designed exhibits to display the vast and varied collection for relocation to the new Perot family offices. The galleries include formal corporate reception areas as well as private displays highlighting Mr. Perot’s life and legacy. Interactive media provides context for the stories presented. Amaze worked closely with Mithun architects to achieve an extremely high-quality aesthetic result. A testament to the result is Mr. Perot’s unmistakable praise: “It’s perfect!”

Architects: Mithun, Seattle, WA
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Media Production: Quin Matthews Films, Dallas, TX
Exhibition Fabrication: Group Delphi, Alameda, CA
Collections Management:
Museum & Collector Resource, Concord, MA

Size: 15,000 sq.ft.
Budget: private
Completion: 2017

Delmar, New York

The Five Rivers Environmental Education Center is a living museum comprising more than 450 acres of broad fields, towering forests, and tranquil wetlands. The Center offers people of all ages a wide variety of guided and self-guided opportunities to encounter nature directly. Stimulating interpretive programs and guided school lessons promote awareness, knowledge, and appreciation of New York State’s environment year ‘round.

Amaze Design developed exhibits for the Center that introduce visitors to the natural and cultural history of this remarkable place, showcase innovative green practices throughout the building and grounds, and orient visitors to over ten miles of trails for self-guided exploration.

Client: NY State Dept. of Environmental Education

Architects: Envision Architects, Albany, NY
Fabrication: 1220 Exhibits, Nashville, TN

Size: 2,000 sq. ft.
Budget: $400,000
Completion: June 2017

Victor, New York

Just southeast of Rochester, NY, lies Ganondagan (ga·NON·da·gan), the site of what used to be a flourishing 17th-century Native American community. Ganondagan was the principal and largest town of the Seneca people, once populated with 4,500 residents and 150 bark longhouses. Considered the final resting place of Jigöhsahsë’, the Mother of Nations, who inspired the warring nations of this region to join together to form the Iroquois Confederacy, it is a revered landmark to the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Mohawk, and Tuscarora people.

Today, Ganondagan hosts year-round special events, site interpretation, and educational programs that share important facets of U.S. history, show the Hodinöhsöni’ influence on contemporary life and introduce thousands of visitors to the Seneca and Iroquois peoples of today.

Amaze Design worked with architect Francois de Menil and FdM:Arch to design the new center that welcomes visitors and orients them to all there is to see and do here. 

Client: The Friends of Ganondagan, Victor, NY

Architect: FdM:Arch, New York, NY
Fabricator: Explus, Dulles, VA

Size: 3,750 sq. ft.
Budget: $5.4 million
Completion: 2015

Dallas, Texas

The Perot Museum of Nature & Science opened in a new 180,000 s.f. facility in the Victory Park neighborhood of Dallas. The building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne and his firm, Morphosis, houses exhibits in a cube-shaped structure with dramatic views of downtown Dallas.

Amaze Design developed five new halls for the Museum in partnership with Group Delphi and Roto. Three of the halls, the Discovering Life, Dynamic Earth, and Expanding Universe, focus on life and earth sciences and astronomy and present overviews of these fields from a systems science point of view. A fourth, Life: Then & Now, houses the museum’s extensive paleontological collection featuring current and emerging research. The fifth, the Rose Hall of Birds features the museum’s important library of bird-related books and manuscripts. Exhibits are designed to showcase a mixture of playful interactives, immersive environments, and awe-inspiring multimedia presentations.

Architects: Morphosis, Culver City, CA
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Design/Fabrication Partners:
Group Delphi, Alameda, CA
Roto, Dublin, OH

Size: 23,500 sq. ft.
Budget: $13 million
Completion: 2012

Playa del Rey, California

The City of Los Angeles undertook the development of the Environmental Learning Center at the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant. This educational facility uses an existing building, landscaping, and interpretive exhibits to provide a visitor experience primarily for school groups, teachers, and occasionally the general public.

The location of the Center is explicit evidence of what lies at the heart of this project: the intersection of how natural water and waste cycles work; how human-made (industrial) recycling is similar and different from these; and the roles that individuals play in contributing to the health of natural and urban environments. The exhibits will increase visitor awareness of the impacts of human activity on the environment and empower visitors of all ages to take action in their everyday lives.

Client: City of Los Angeles, CA

Architects & Engineers:
CDM Smith, Los Angeles, CA

Fabrication:
Lexington Design & Fabrication, Los Angeles, CA

Size: 7,000 sq. ft.
Budget: $3.5 million
Completion: Earth Day, 2013

This state-of-the-art exhibit and performance facility in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Cultural District is a gallery space presenting exhibits that interpret and preserve the thriving art, thriving art, culture, and history in Western Pennsylvania. The displays are a key to the Center’s rich array of educational and public programs. Utilizing layered, multi-dimensional, interactive, and innovative techniques, the exhibits will engage visitors, enhance the public’s knowledge and appreciation, build cultural pride, and encourage learning through the arts to support the Center’s overall vision.

Client: August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Pittsburgh, PA

Architects: Perkins + Will, San Francisco, CA
Film Production: Firethorn Productions, New York, NY
Media Design: Monadnock Media, Sunderland, MA
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: VDA Productions, Somerville, MA

Size:  3,500 sq. ft.
Budget:  $850,000
Completion:  2009

African Burial Ground National Monument
New York, NY

In 1991, the 7-acre African Burial Ground site in lower Manhattan was “re-discovered.” The site became a National Historic Landmark in 1993, and in 2006 it was designated a National Monument by President George W. Bush. It is the final resting place for as many as 15,000 free and enslaved African men, women, and children who lived during the 17th and 18th Centuries.

The African Burial Ground is one of the most significant cultural sites for African history and heritage in America, both in terms of its content and the ongoing research and “re-learning” that it has engendered. Amaze Design was entrusted with a great responsibility not only to create exhibits that would sensitively interpret and honor the lives of those interred here but also foster awareness of the critical role of Africans in the building and history of New York City.

Client: National Park Service

Architects: Roberta Washington Associates, New York, NY
Film: Firethorn Productions, New York, NY
Multimedia: Northern Light Productions, Allston, MA
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: Southern Custom Exhibits, Anniston, AL

Size: 3,000 sq. ft.
Budget: $2.1 million
Completion: 2010

Nantucket, Massachusetts

In 2005, the Nantucket Historical Association completed a major restoration and expansion of its Whaling Museum. The museum serves as the operational hub for all Historical Association properties and museums.

Exhibits focus on the Nantucket whaling story comprising four themes: Making a Living, Peopling the Island, Ideologies, and The Island Resort. The museum also features the skeleton of a 46-foot-long sperm whale, an original 28-foot-long 19th-century whaleboat, the original Fresnel lens from the 1849 Sankaty Head Light, and the restored 1847 Hadwen & Barney Oil and Candle Factory.

Client: Nantucket Historical Association

Architect: Martin Sokoloff Inc., Brookline, MA
Film: John Stanton, Nantucket, MA
Lighting Design: Luce Group, New York, NY
Fabrication: Art Guild, West Deptford, NJ

Size: 10,500 sq. ft.
Budget: $12 million
Completion: 2005

Davis Bayou, Gulf Islands National Seashore
Ocean Springs, MS

Amaze Design worked closely with the National Park Service in planning the Gulf Islands National Seashore Visitor Center at Davis Bayou. The park offers visitors many recreational opportunities, including fishing, hiking, biking, camping, bird-watching, picnicking, and ranger-led programs.

The Center’s exhibits provide visitors with a multi-layered interpretive experience of the park’s history, resources, and geography. Indoor exhibits cover such topics as lighthouses, island artifacts, fishing, and the ecological diversity of the five habitats found in the park, engaging visitors with a rich and unique story. Universal design, known as ‘inclusive design,’ ‘design-for-all,’ and ‘human-centered design’ guided the creation of an exhibit experience for visitors of all ages and abilities.

Client: National Park Service

Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: Color-Ad, Manassas, VA

Size: 2,500 sq. ft.
Budget: $1.5 million
Completion: 2011

Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, CA

The Chabot Space and Science Center teamed up with Bill Nye the Science Guy and Amaze Design to take on climate change. Through permanent and traveling exhibits, Chabot brings visitors on an adventure to discover the science and issues of climate change in an empowering, informative, and fun way.

With Bill Nye as their commander, visitors join a force of “climate scouts” who conduct experiments, meet scientists, consider new ideas and express their opinions. The first scout mission is to collect an arsenal of climate change solutions embedded in both the exhibits on the floor and online. As their adventure draws to a close, visitors savor the successful completion of their first mission and real-world success stories, excited to continue working towards a sustainable future on Earth.

Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: General Graphics, Alameda, CA

Size: 4,000 sq. ft. + traveling exhibit
Budget: $2 million
Completion: 2010

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Birmingham, AL

When it opened in 1992, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute became one of the premier educational centers for studying the Civil Rights Movement and the global struggle for human rights. Today the Institute is more vital than ever and was awarded the 2007 National Award for Museum Services by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

To continue empowering individuals to value their freedoms and work towards mutual understanding, the Institute hired Amaze Design to refurbish its old exhibits and build new exhibits. These exhibits make the movement relevant to young lives today and put the power of change in their hands. Expanding the Legacy opened to the public in January 2009.

Graphic Design: Proun, Somerville, MA
Multimedia: Northern Light Productions, Allston, MA
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: Southern Custom Exhibits, Anniston, AL

Size: 4,000 sq. ft.
Budget: $2 million
Completion: 2009

Lowndes County Interpretive Center
Hayneville, Alabama

The National Park Service’s Lowndes County Interpretive Center commemorates the historic 1965 civil rights march that helped gain the right to vote for all Americans. The Center is located in a historically significant location along the original route of the 1965 march.

For this project, Amaze Design assembled an extensive research team to collect objects, images, and stories from those who marched. Working closely with local and community leaders and the National Park Service, we developed the story and design for this nationally important exhibit. The exhibition opened to the public in August 2006.

Amaze Design provided all design, research, evaluation, writing, graphic production, media development, and fabrication oversight services for this project.

Client: National Park Service

Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: Color-Ad, Manassas, VA

Size: 3,500 sq. ft.
Budget: $1.4 million
Completion: 2006

Lynn, Massachusetts

From 1875 to 1882, Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, lived in a modest home at 8 Broad Street in Lynn, Massachusetts. In 2011, the Longyear Museum completed an interior and exterior restoration of this historically important home where Mrs. Eddy and her husband, Gilbert Eddy, lived and worked.

It was here that she laid the foundations for Christian Science through healing, teaching, and writing Science and Health—all despite personal and public struggles. The first-floor exhibits explore Mrs. Eddy’s life during the period of time she lived in the house. Interpretive graphics, artifacts, and touchable reproductions of her books, lectures, and sermons allow visitors to discover her powerful voice and ideas. Visitors are invited to join a guided tour of the furnished second and third floors.

The exhibit closes with a celebration of her legacy. “Testimony cards” display personal accounts of people, past and present, who have been healed and regenerated by Christian Science around the world.

Client: Longyear Museum

Architects: Wolf Architects Inc., Boston, MA
Fabrication: Aries Custom Works, Somerville, MA

Size: 910 sq. ft.
Budget: $85,000
Completion: 2014

Chicago History Museum
Chicago, Illinois

The Chicago History Museum set the bar high for its children’s gallery, "Sensing Chicago." Amaze Design and the Museum team developed the concept and focused on creating an engaging, memorable, and surprising visitor experience. In this exhibit, children and their friends and families use their eyes, ears, noses, hands, and tongues to find history.

In "Touch," children can feel what it might have been like to ride a high-wheel bicycle over a Chicago street paved in wooden bricks. In "Smell," table-top map of Chicago with hands-on interactives helps them to discover Chicago through their noses, and a kid-sized soft-sculpture hot dog bun lets kids BE a Chicago-style hot dog with all their favorite toppings. The exhibit was developed as part of the Chicago History Museum’s facility-wide renovation.

Multimedia: Monadnock Media, Sunderland, MA
Fabrication: Proto Productions, Chicago, IL

Size: 1,500 sq. ft.
Budget: $600,000
Completion: 2006

Birmingham, Alabama

The 56-foot-tall Vulcan, a grand prize-winning entry to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and a Depression-era park have been reunited and restored atop Birmingham's Red Mountain. Vulcan Park was selected by the White House and the National Trust For Historic Preservation for restoration under the Save America’s Treasures millennium initiative. The Park now serves as a vital educational and recreational destination for local visitors and tourists.

Amaze Design, in collaboration with HKW Associates, Architects, and Nimrod Long, Landscape Architects, completed the design and construction for the Visitor Center and new 5-acre park. The scope of the project included outdoor interpretive trails, public parking, and a new outdoor café. Amaze Design was involved in this project from masterplan through construction.

Client: Vulcan Park Foundation

Architects: HKW Associates, Birmingham, AL
Landscape Architects: Nimrod Long, Birmingham, AL
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: Southern Custom Exhibits, Anniston, AL

Size: 12,000 sq. ft.
Budget: $14 million
Completion: 2004

National Children’s Museum
National Harbor, Maryland

The National Children’s Museum inspires children to care about and improve the world. The Museum’s exhibits and innovative educational programs spark the imagination and celebrate the true power of children, motivating them to become people who make a difference in the world. Amaze Design has partnered with the staff at the Museum to design and build Our World, its main indoor exhibit.

Our World helps children develop a life-long curiosity about the world and cultures that surround them. Designed primarily for children over age three, the exhibit introduces visitors to the responsibilities and rewards of both global and community citizenship through three key areas: Map Zone, My Town, and World Cultures. Children are encouraged to think about the similarities and differences among our global societies and explore the various roles they may play in their communities, such as family member, friend, neighbor, student, team member, and citizen.

Client: National Children's Museum

Architects: Hickock Cole Architects, Washington DC
Fabrication: Explus, Inc. Dulles, VA

Size: 6,000 sq. ft.
Budget: $900,000
Completion: December 2012

Hartford, Connecticut

For over 200 years, the Charles Bullfinch-designed Old State House has graced downtown Hartford. Saved from destruction in 1921 by a group of private citizens, it remains an important symbol of the state’s history. Today the Connecticut Historical Society manages the building, offering tours of the restored senate chamber, council room, and courtroom.

A new permanent exhibit devoted to the history of Hartford is a significant addition to the experience. The exhibit show visitors that “history is all around us.” It’s in the landscape and in the buildings where we live and work. What we say, write, photograph, and film is history. It’s in the clothes we wear, the tools we use, and the food we eat. Even the ways we have fun are part of history. Exhibits explore this concept through the lens of Hartford-specific stories and artifacts.

Client: Connecticut Historical Society

Architects: Turner Construction, Milford, CT
Multimedia: Northern Light Productions, Allston, MA
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication: Malone, Atlanta, GA

Size: 6,800 sq. ft.
Budget: $1.2 million
Completion: 2006

Prouts Neck, Scarborough, Maine

From 1884 until his death, the great American artist Winslow Homer (1836–1910) lived and painted in this two-story studio on the coast of Maine. Declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and purchased by the Portland Museum of Art (PMA) in 2006 from the artist’s great-grand-nephew, the restored studio celebrates Homer’s life and work, inspires scholarship, and encourages scholarship visitors to appreciate the artistic heritage of Winslow Homer and Maine.

Amaze Design assisted the PMA in developing a visitor experience that includes a gallery orientation, a visit to three principal rooms of the studio, and a walk along the rocky shoreline that inspired many of Homer’s late paintings. The Museum gallery focuses on the history of the studio building and the six-year project to restore it. Ground floor exhibits in the studio interpret Homer’s life and work at Prouts Neck in the context of his overall career. Displays in the second-floor attic examine his creative process and the connection between his late paintings and this unique place.

The Winslow Homer Studio is only accessible through scheduled tours from the PMA from late May through mid-October.

Client: Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME

Architect: Mills Whitaker Architects, Bridgton, ME

Size: Studio: 1,530 sq. ft. / Gallery: 375 sq. ft.
Completion: 2012

Boston, Massachusetts

In the early 1760s, the Royal Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay met with his Council in an upstairs chamber at Boston’s Town House (now the Old State House). This room was once a nerve center for the British Empire in North America. Amaze Design and alumni artisans of the North Bennet Street School assisted the Bostonian Society in reimagining this historic room as it might have looked when Bostonians felt great pride in their identity as British subjects.

Artifact displays show both British- and Boston-made goods, conveying the connection between Great Britain and her colony, as well as shared perceptions of wealth and status. Visitors may sit in the Royal Governor’s chair at the head of the council table, thumb through reproduction documents, and view royal portraits to become acquainted with the British monarchy. Hands-on exploration reveals that small props in the room—a tea table, a bowl of lemons, a hat, and pair of shoes—tell the stories of the ordinary citizens who lived nearby and sold their wares to the Town House. After navigating the room, visitors leave with a new understanding of how British society influenced the social conventions and concept of “liberty” that was upheld by Bostonians in 1764.

Client: The Bostonian Society, Boston, MA

Fabrication: VDA Productions, Somerville, MA

Size: 1,100 square feet
Budget: $50,000
Completion: 2014

Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

The Longyear Museum is dedicated to Mary Baker Eddy, the only American woman to found a religious denomination, Christian Science. Here, visitors of all religions find a welcoming and contemplative space in which to explore the life of a woman driven by a spiritual discovery. Mary Baker Eddy’s life and work are experienced here through artifacts, audio, media, and her own words.

The exhibits are housed in a beautiful building by Stopfel Architects. They occupy two galleries linked by a lobby and loggia designed by Amaze. We created the conceptual and intellectual framework, designed all two- and three-dimensional elements, produced all media, and oversaw fabrication, production, and installation of the exhibits for the museum.

Architect: Stopfel Architects, Boston, MA
Multimedia: Batwin + Robin, New York, NY
Lighting Design: Available Light, Boston, MA
Fabrication:  EDE Corporation, Chicago, IL

Size: 6,500 sq. ft.
Budget: $3.25 million
Completion: 2001

Albany, New York

The Albany Pine Bush Preserve Discovery Center provides a hands-on and fun place for Capital Region residents to learn about the exceptional ecosystem in their own backyard. Exhibits tell the story of the Pine Bush’s scrubby dunes—the legacy of the last ice age—when glaciers covering New York State began to melt and recede, leaving behind Glacial Lake Albany and engulfing, what is today, the Capital Region.

Today the Albany Pine Bush harbors many rare and endangered plants and animals, including the beautiful Karner Blue butterfly. Visitors leave the Discovery Center and its outdoor exhibits appreciative of the Pine Bush’s complex geologic, natural, and cultural history, inspired by the work of the Commission, and ready to explore further and help support this vital community.

Architects: Envision Architects, Albany, NY
Fabrication: Taylor Studios, Rantoul, IL

Size: 5,000 sq. ft.
Budget: $700,000
Completion: 2007

Canberra, Australia

The National Museum of Australia combines cutting-edge exhibit techniques, new media technologies, and live performances within dynamic architectural and landscape spaces to create a unique visitor experience. The museum addresses the diversity of Australian society and the relationship between people and the environment. It celebrates the achievement of the nation and what it means to be Australian.

A sophisticated media and communications center provides the museum with the ability to exchange information with schools, museums, and institutions around the world. This innovative use of technology changes the standards of information accessibility and collaboration for museums in the 21st Century.

The Museum opened in March 2001 in recognition of Australia’s Centenary of Federation.

Size: 55,000 sq. ft.
Budget: $21 million
Completion: 2001