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Archives

PAJMZ

January 1, 2002

Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo’s  Bat House Renovation + Bobcat and Raptor Exhibit Plans

client: Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo
location: Palo Alto, CA | opened: 2001

 

This intimate, beloved zoo / museum (a.k.a. “Mu-zoo-eum”, or as we at LCS called it “PAJMZ”, pronounced “pajamaz”) houses small animals for close-up, personal connections with visitors. Mindy and her team designed a renovation of the Bat House that improved conditions for the animals, zoo keepers, and visitors. It is a healthy, happy, and joyous experience all around; a kind of temple of contemplation for viewing bats. LCS also developed plans for the bobcat and raptor exhibits so that the Zoo could raise funds to renovate their habitats.

 

Folklife

January 1, 2002

Northwest Folklife Festival Graphics + Entry Furniture

client: Northwest Folklife
location: Seattle, WA | size: 74-acre site | opened: 2002, 2003, 2004

 

The Northwest Folklife Festival is an annual event at the Seattle Center, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors over three days. Lehrman Cameron Studio was selected for three years as Art Director and Designer for festival graphics and some environmental elements. This included posters, t-shirts, buttons, and an array of random graphic design pieces.  LCS also helped to improve the Festival entrances with new colorful, kinetic signs, icons, and support furniture. Each year had a particular theme for which we made distinctive designs.

The Han Madang (Korean) festival illustrations/graphics were by Mindy. The other two years of illustrations were by Rebecca Allan.

 

 

 

Islandwood

January 1, 2002

Islandwood “A School in the Woods” | Interpretive, Educational + Environmental Graphics

client: Islandwood
location: Bainbridge Island, WA | size: 255 acre campus | opened: 2002

IslandWood is an environmental education center in a forest on Bainbridge Island just outside of Seattle, living up to its promise of changing the lives and minds of fourth and fifth graders. Lehrman Cameron Studio designed a complex system of site signs and interpretive graphics for the facility, adding a depth of visual and verbal information to the educational discourse, in harmony with the existing, award-winning sustainable design. This project is an example of the environmentally sensitive work for which LCS has a passion and in which LCS has consistently excelled. The campus and programs are the embodiment of founders Debbi and Paul Brainerd’s vision and energy. The architecture is by Mithun Architects and the landscaping is by the Berger Partnership.

 

Woodland Park Zoo African Village

January 1, 2001

African Village Interpretive Elements

client: Woodland Park Zoo
location: Seattle, WA | size: 7,500 sq ft | opened: 2001

 

The African Village is the signature entry to the African Savanna Habitat at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. LCS designed the furniture, props, artifacts, and other items that tell the story in an immersive environment, all without using third person signage. Working as the interpretive designers for Patrick Janikowski Architects, Mindy and her team designed this experience so that visitors feel as though they have lived a day in East Africa. The primary message is that East Africa is a complex environment, combining elements of the ancient and modern, where humans and animals live in increasingly close proximity. (Remarkably, Mindy designed of much of the furniture without research and only afterwards confirmed that it was correct. Having not yet visited Kenya, National Geographics in Mindy’s childhood must have made an indelible impression.)

 

 

It feels like home. – Kikuta Hamisi, Maasai warrior and interpreter for the WPZ African Village

 

 

Soundbridge

January 1, 2001

“Soundbridge”, Seattle Symphony’s Music Discovery Center

client: The Seattle Symphony
location: Seattle, WA  – at Benaroya Hall | size: 2,300 sq ft | opened: 2001

 

“Soundbridge” is an interactive and interpretive setting for the exploration, creation, and understanding of symphonic music. The intent was to make symphonic music accessible to a diverse and inclusive (often new) audience for the symphony. Mindy and her team at Lehrman Cameron Studio developed and designed all interior elements and exhibitions.

Exhibits deal with music theory, sections of the orchestra, science of sound, musicians, composing, and conducting. The main challenge was to satisfy multiple, potentially competing, functional requirements in a small space. There is a performance/workshop space, hands-on exhibitry with touchable and playable instruments, a “listening bar”, and visitor services, tied together by sophisticated computer, audio/visual, and telecommunication systems, all within an acoustically controlled interior.

For Mindy, an important aspect of the design was that there would be representatives of people from a range of races, and genders. Several symphonic musicians were interviewed and filmed to beckon at each of several “Meet the Musician” stations so that visitors can immediately see and meet artists with whom they may relate.

LCS worked with Partners in Design on the graphics and Butler Robbins Alliance on lighting design. (Many photos on this site are © Lara Swimmer, 2001.)

 

This is one of the coolest places for children in all of Seattle… – A Parent’s Guide to Seattle, by Tom Hobson

 

Stanford Museum

January 1, 1999

Stanford University Museum of Art Galleries

client: Stanford University

location: Palo Alto, CA | size: 44,000 sq ft | opened: 1998

 

Founded in 1891, the Stanford University Museum of Art developed a collection of artwork from many eras and all over the world. The Museum closed in 1989 due to earthquake damage, but was restored, expanded, and reopened as The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts in 1998.

At the time of the restoration, LCS had recently moved to Seattle and was comprised of Mindy plus one assistant, Juliet Hebert (now Anderson). We were hired to develop the master plan for the galleries, design all exhibit furniture and supports, choose wall colors, and consult on graphic design and lighting. The project reinstalled nineteen galleries, including modern and contemporary, Ancient Mediterranean, Asian, Rodin, European, American, prints, drawings, and a temporary gallery.

Over two years, we organized the input of 10 (sometimes warring) curators, Museum Director, and technical and administrative staff to achieve an intelligent exhibition design that not only succeeded for the reinstallation’s opening shows, but for the long-term. As added value, we gave the museum nineteen gallery models with all artwork to scale so that they could plan for the future.

 

Those who care about the arts in the Bay Area will be thrilled by what they see. – Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle

 

The AMNH

August 12, 1994

The American Museum of Natural History Dinosaur Hall Retail Store Design

client: American Museum of Natural History
location: New York, NY | size: 1,500 sq ft | opened: 1993

 

Mindy’s design of the retail store at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC harmonizes with the beloved original dinosaur galleries and their then recent renovation. The dark wood and simple, elegant detailing pays homage to the historical museum context while effectively displaying the shop’s contemporary dinosaur-themed merchandise. The apse-like space is compact and presented a design and construction challenge with all of its curves, but this turned out to be a rare and enjoyable opportunity. The design includes layers of hidden storage. This space was historically the museum director’s office and Mindy is especially proud of having preserved the original floor (which, otherwise, the museum was about to demolish).

Mindy Cameron was project architect on staff for Ralph Appelbaum Associates for this design.

 

Osaka Science Museum

January 1, 1994

Osaka Science Museum Electricity Exhibits 

client: Exploratorium
location: New York, NY | size: 12 tabletop exhibits | opened: 1994

 

The Exploratorium in San Francisco commissioned Mindy to design twelve portable exhibits on the subject of electricity for the Osaka Science Museum as part of an “Exhibit Starter Sets” program. This was a first-of-its-kind outreach configuration of the Exploratorium’s didactic content. Mindy designs were made of durable, colorful, and industrial materials. At one exhibit component, a visitor can pedal a bicycle to physically understand how much effort it takes to light a series of lamps. Another exhibit seems to defy gravity. Another uses the visitors as a battery. Still another incorporates a Jacob’s Ladder, with its rising arcs of electricity. These exhibits help explain magnetism, motors, glow discharges, generators, and energy versus power.

The images here are the design plans, hand-drawn by Mindy.

Island Architecture

January 1, 1993

“Island Architecture” Exhibition

client: Pratt Institute
location: Brooklyn, NY | size: 2,000 sq ft | opened: 1993

 

Mindy’s desire to teach led her to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York where they were preparing to have a show of the work of women architects from Florida, Puerto Rico, the Carribean, and Long Island, with the clever title ‘Island Architecture”.  As a test to see if she could handle academia and what she was about, they asked Mindy to design the show, gave her a budget of $250, and ten days to do the work.

Mindy hung the architecture panels among consignment clothes from clotheslines strung low across the gallery space. Vistors had to duck under socks, underwear, kitchen utensils, and design drawings. She provided provocative quotes on the history of women in architecture, particularly about how they were nearly forever relegated to the domestic, and how it took until Julia Morgan for female architects to get out of the house.

This resonated positively with most of the feminist population and was quite provocative for at least one female professor. Pratt asked Mindy to partake in a panel discussion and, afterwards, they offered her the coveted teaching gig. In a moment of irony, Mindy relinquished the job to move west and start a family.

 

Garbage Museum

January 1, 1991

“River of Resources” Exhibition (a.k.a. The Garbage Museum)

client: Connecticut Resource Recovery Authority
location: Hartford, CT | size: 6,000 sq ft | opened: 1993

 

Mindy launched Lehrman Cameron Studio on the “River of Resources” (a.k.a. The Garbage Museum); the firm’s first project. It is an exhibition about solid waste, housed in a visitor center that is part of Connecticut’s largest recycling facility. The exhibit takes the visitor from the problems to the solutions of solid waste management. The experience helps the visitor emerge with an understanding of solid waste problems and a feeling that he or she can do something about garbage that makes a healthy, positive difference. From the start, Mindy has always loved detritus and has seen it as a resource worth tapping, so this project was near and dear to her heart.

LCS held the design/build contract. We hired Proforma, a Massachusetts firm, to collaborate on fabrication and installation.

 

Winner of Print Magazine’s Best In Exhibit Design award, 1994.