THE GALLERY'S SCULPTURE GARDEN IS UNDER-
USED AND UNDER-
APPRECIATED
USED AND UNDER-
APPRECIATED
Modest adjustments and interventions to increase ACCESS, INTEREST and USE
The sculpture garden has the potential to be a space enjoyed by all who visit, but it’s often overlooked, forgotten, or isn’t immediately clear that it’s accessible. Among our peers, we’ve discovered that many people who visit the Gallery
regularly don’t
even know the Sculpture Garden exists.
The YUAG Sculpture Garden has the potential to be a lovely space enjoyed by anyone strolling through New Haven, but due to a lack of signage and visibility, it’s often overlooked or even forgotten. Among our peers, we’ve discovered that many people who regularly visit the Gallery don’t even know the Sculpture Garden exists!
We’ve identified a number of issues that limit accessibility to the Sculpture Garden for new visitors and wheelchair users. To address these concerns, we’ve created a menu of modest interventions to ease these friction points and create a more-welcoming and enjoyable experience for visitors. FIRST IMPRESSIONS focuses on getting people up and into the sculpture garden, by way of improvements to accessibility, way-finding, information points and programming.
Our approach is based on ideas of access, interest, and use. First, The Sculpture Garden should be accessible by all bodies: including people coming from a variety of backgrounds (museum goers and non-museum goers), people with different forms of mobility, and people who are concerned about virus transmission in a post-pandemic world. Second, we focus on interest, asking ourselves: what would make people more interested in visiting the Garden? And finally, how can we take full advantage of the space by offering an alternative to the way the Garden is used?
To address these issues, we created a website which serves two functions. First, it is an ongoing archive of the project, illustrating both our body of research, and the variety of interventions that will improve access, interest, and use of the Sculpture Garden. And second, the website itself is one of the primary interventions: designed to provide information and to provide a venue for the public to participate in the planning of the Gallery, by contributing their own experiences to the research, and offering ideas for other possible interventions.
[Note: These interventions are deliberately minimalistic and modest in size, as we believe that many small adjustments, which are feasible in scope and scale, can collectively result in dramatic, positive change in the use, culture and experience of the Gallery—such as the activation of the underused Sculpture Garden.
Additionally, we believe it’s important to communicate to YUAG and other institutions that universal design is a moral imperative which can be addressed through simple, logistical, cost effective solutions, not just large scale, extravagant and expensive remodeling.]
The YUAG Sculpture Garden has the potential to be a lovely space enjoyed by anyone strolling through New Haven, but due to a lack of signage and visibility, it’s often overlooked or even forgotten. Among our peers, we’ve discovered that many people who regularly visit the Gallery don’t even know the Sculpture Garden exists!
We’ve identified a number of issues that limit accessibility to the Sculpture Garden for new visitors and wheelchair users. To address these concerns, we’ve created a menu of modest interventions to ease these friction points and create a more-welcoming and enjoyable experience for visitors. FIRST IMPRESSIONS focuses on getting people up and into the sculpture garden, by way of improvements to accessibility, way-finding, information points and programming.
Our approach is based on ideas of access, interest, and use. First, The Sculpture Garden should be accessible by all bodies: including people coming from a variety of backgrounds (museum goers and non-museum goers), people with different forms of mobility, and people who are concerned about virus transmission in a post-pandemic world. Second, we focus on interest, asking ourselves: what would make people more interested in visiting the Garden? And finally, how can we take full advantage of the space by offering an alternative to the way the Garden is used?
To address these issues, we created a website which serves two functions. First, it is an ongoing archive of the project, illustrating both our body of research, and the variety of interventions that will improve access, interest, and use of the Sculpture Garden. And second, the website itself is one of the primary interventions: designed to provide information and to provide a venue for the public to participate in the planning of the Gallery, by contributing their own experiences to the research, and offering ideas for other possible interventions.
[Note: These interventions are deliberately minimalistic and modest in size, as we believe that many small adjustments, which are feasible in scope and scale, can collectively result in dramatic, positive change in the use, culture and experience of the Gallery—such as the activation of the underused Sculpture Garden.
Additionally, we believe it’s important to communicate to YUAG and other institutions that universal design is a moral imperative which can be addressed through simple, logistical, cost effective solutions, not just large scale, extravagant and expensive remodeling.]
How can we increase INTEREST?
How can we increase ACCESS?
How can we develop the USE and PROGRAMMING of the space?
How can we increase ACCESS?
How can we develop the USE and PROGRAMMING of the space?
