Design is having a moment. Thanks to Apple and a multitude of hardware startups, the design world is receiving more attention than ever. So what’s the best way to teach people about design in the 21st Century? Our answer: give visitors of all ages the tools to become designers for a day, engaging in every step of the process. That was our mission in re-imagining New York City's Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, which closed for renovations in 2011, and reopened to the public in December 2014.

We believe Cooper Hewitt, with our original and highly approachable digital tools, sets a precedent for institutions aspiring to engage their audiences in what the Harvard Business Review describes as today's "experience economy." That experience continues to improve, thanks in part to Cooper Hewitt’s open API for its collection. Our work is a central part of Cooper Hewitt’s continued evolution, and their API and our custom interfaces allow content to be updated as new exhibits are added. With these new tools, Cooper Hewitt achieved the holy trinity of social buzz, increased attendance, and critical acclaim. The Atlantic declared it "the museum of the future." Fast Co Design gave this assessment: “In its new incarnation, the Cooper Hewitt taps into what distinguishes a design museum, which celebrates functional objects built with users in mind, from any other museum full of beautiful objects: It allows you to play with the collection, rather than just look at it.” By offering deep context and personalization, we delivered something that’s impossible to achieve with static objects in the traditional museum setting.

For three years, we worked with the Cooper Hewitt to address the challenges of the digital era, to create a more engaging space, and to draw in more young visitors to the almost 120-year-old museum. Our concept was born of the belief that design should be understood through doing, and that the desire to create and participate is universal. The new museum experience hinges on a single object: an interactive pen conceived and programmed by our team. The Pen is an all-access pass to the world of design, allowing visitors to explore objects in the Cooper Hewitt’s vast collection with unprecedented depth. This single component unites all of the digital experiences at Cooper Hewitt.

The interactive Pen is the ultimate tool for creativity, and stretches beyond the capabilities of existing consumer technologies to create a valuable and unique museum experience. The opportunity to create presents itself throughout the museum, from the Process Lab, where visitors can design and submit improvements to everyday objects, to the Immersion Room, which brings Cooper Hewitt’s massive collection of wallpaper designs and swatches to life. Visitors can select individual wallpaper swatches from the museum’s collection, or create their own. They can then project the patterns on broad swaths of open wall surrounding the exhibit, and get immersed in the imagery they’ve created or selected. Visitors can also use the Pen to curate their own digital collections and dive deeper into the history behind each object. Objects throughout the museum carry smart NFC labels that visitors can activate with their Pen, and save to a personal digital library. To learn more about a particular piece, visitors can stop by any one of seven 4K-resolution touchscreen tables to learn about an object’s history, and view related pieces. A variety of innovative search methods personalize the experience as visitors explore the collection. To search the collection by shape, visitors draw lines and patterns, and our algorithm returns objects with similar forms. They can use their bodies to search the collection using “gesture match,” which uses a Kinect to find objects that match visitors’ gestures and body position. These new search methods bring to light the continued relevance of a museum space like Cooper Hewitt. Visitors can interact with a collection in ways that would be impossible elsewhere, using cutting-edge technology that they can’t find anywhere else.