National Children’s Museum: Alif Ba
Client: National Children’s Museum, Washington DC
The National Children’s Museum partnered with the Qatar Foundation to create the “Alif Ba Exhibition,” which invites children and families to explore the Arabic alphabet.
Guests are given the opportunity to touch the letters that make up the Huruf al-Abjadia (or, letters of the alphabet), to listen to the sound of each harf (or, letter), to discover Arabic words that begin with those letters, and to practice writing or tracing the Huruf al-Abjadia.
Conceptual development, project management, design, and fabrication.
Energy Revolution
Client: Chicago Architecture Center
The Chicago Architecture Center wants to show how various aspects of design, construction, and urban planning can help mitigate the effects of climate change.
This exhibit is about energy – conserving it, switching to electricity, generating electricity without fossil fuels, and optimizing our storage and use of it.
Three wall cutaways showed the evolution of Chicago architecture. The future was shown through touchable samples of the latest building materials and a kinetic dance floor.
Exhibit development and design, project management, fabrication, and installation.
DuPage Children’s Museum: Pre-concept Planning
Client: Bridgewater Studios
Working with Bridgewater Studios and Doug Farr-FAIA, we helped DuPage Children’s Museum imagine their future.
DCM has its sights set on being a regional convener, a beacon of sustainability, and an inspiration for all children.
The project proposes an expanded building with additional parking, EV charging stations and a huge interactive green space that engages guests at the intersection of energy, water, and agriculture.
Inside, a new 8,000 sqft creative incubator maker space will connect the challenges of the future with the personal ability to invent the solutions.
Pre-concept development, architectural feasibility, project cost estimating.
The Friends™ Experience / The Office™ Experience
Client: Chicago Scenic Studios
Working with Chicago Scenic Studios and Superfly, we’ve been helping to adapt the room reactions and Instagramable moments of these two iconic television shows to multiple, non-traditional venues around the country.
It’s never easy going into vacant retail spaces and converting them into immersive spaces. But rolling with the challenges of new spaces, new cities, and new crews, keeps the adventure of moving a show to a new venue exciting and new.
Install/dismantle supervision, packing, inventory, crew management.
Hamilton: The Exhibition
Client: IMG/Hamilton
A unique journey through 14 exquisite galleries that bring the real history to life.
Featuring an audio tour narrated by the musical’s author, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton: The Exhibition is designed to take visitors deeper into the life and times of Alexander Hamilton, while at the same time chronicling the American Revolution and the creation of the United States of America.
Hamilton wasn’t just a 25,000 sqft exhibit. It was a custom built, 30,000 sqft building erected on City of Chicago Park District land for the temporary and sole purpose of the exhibition. The structure was designed to be broken down and shipped to the next city, this way the exhibition could go on tour as initially designed.
The park site had no infrastructure – no water, electricity, paths, lighting, or roads. We built everything from scratch.
Conceptual development, project management, design coordination, installation, and operation.
Numbers in Nature
Produced by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
Patterns surround us in nature. They’ll tell you how things work on our planet, if you know where to look to find them.
Out the window, through a microscope, or in the mirror—patterns surround us. They form the veins of a leaf, the spiral of a nautilus, and the spots on a giraffe. Patterns also inspire us as we create or build things: some arrangements just … feel right. Our key to unlocking these patterns is math. Math “isn’t your thing”? Wait until you see Numbers in Nature.
Conceptual development, project management, design coordination, installation, operation, and touring.
Robot Revolution
Produced by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
Enter a visionary world where robots are not just a curiosity, but a vital asset.
Robot Revolution, created while we were with the world-class Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, and supported by Google.org, came to life with an awe-inspiring collection of cutting-edge robots from some of the most innovative universities and global robotics companies.
40 robots from 40 different manufacturers in 9 countries – 300 battery changes a day.
Conceptual development, project management, design, installation, operation, and touring.
Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius
Produced by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
The original Leonardo exhibition. Often copied, never duplicated.
60 working models crafted by Italian artisans; an 8,000 square foot interactive workshop with a working catapult and a walk-in camera obscura; an original Leonardo codex page that had been lost to time; and, 40 “Modern Day Leonardos” to provide contemporary context.
This ground-breaking exhibit- event was covered by the New York Times and NBC Nightly News.
Conceptual development, project management, design coordination, installation, and operation.
Washed Ashore
Client: WashedAshore.org
Talk about a big fish story!
WashedAshore created amazing, large-scale sculptures of iconic sea creatures using plastic that has washed up on beaches in an effort to build awareness of the massive trash problem in our oceans.
Sage worked with the Florida Aquarium’s staff to coordinate the removal and delicate handling of these art pieces, which are too large to ship on a conventional semi trailer.
Dismantle, packing, inventory, truck loading, and shipping coordination.
Chicago's Night Sky
Client: Adler Planetarium
In a dark sky, you can see about 4,500 stars with the naked eye. In Chicago’s sky, you can see about 35.
As long as people have walked the Earth, they’ve looked to the sky as a creative muse, a constant companion, and a gateway to the mysteries of our Universe. This brand-new exhibition will help connect you—and the city around you—to the wondrous human tradition of looking up.
Production and design management.
Sounds of Silence
Produced by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
“There is still a window of time. Nature can win, if we give her a chance.” – Jane Goodall
Each species on Earth has a voice – some we can hear, some we cannot. But what is lost if those species disappear?
Using the latest in directional sound technology, this “exhibit with no words” celebrates biodiversity while exploring the very real threats to the survival of all the non-human dwellers of our planet. Research shows that when habitats change, so do their natural soundtracks.
Concept design and exhibit development.
Bug Lab
Client: Museum EXP/Te Papa
With the Field Museum in Chicago closed, Te Papa – New Zealand’s national science and natural history museum – needed to get their Bug Lab exhibit out and ready to go to its next venue once COVID is over.
We collaborated with Museum EXP to create safety guidelines, and worked side by side with the Field Museum’s crew to pack up the exhibit and get it inventoried so the next venue could put it all back together easily.
Dismantle, packing, inventory, truck loading, and local coordination for exhibit maintenance.
Brick by Brick
Produced by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
The sensational LEGO® structures and hands-on challenges in Brick by Brick reveal the power of play as a gateway to creating greatness.
LEGO® Certified Professional and Chicago native Adam Reed Tucker built more than a dozen world icons including a 60-foot Golden Gate Bridge, the International Space Station and Roman Colosseum.
These were enhanced by hands-on interactions on structural engineering and several LEGO® build spaces.
Exhibit design and development, project management, installation, and operation.
Treasures of the Disney Archive
Produced by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
To anchor MSI’s annual holiday presentation, we took a collection of decades of creative work from the Disney vault –most of which had never been seen by the public – and crafted a story of both the man and company we’ve all come to love.
Animation, park development, and films all came to life in this exhibit. We were even able to repurpose the popular Animation Academy from Disney’s California Adventure park to do live drawing lessons several times a day.
Exhibit design and development, project management, installation, and operation.
Action! An Adventure in Moviemaking
Produced by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
Coordinated with 13 competitive studios to work together to provide artifacts and expertise that gave museum audiences an authentic look inside the industry and the people who make it happen.
20,000 sqft including an 8,000 sqft working soundstage where guests could make an actual movie and take it home with them that day.
Conceptual development, project management, design coordination, installation, and touring to other museums.
