Design Forecast 2016

Gensler Design Forecast 2016
Arts & Culture
Catalyzing community
Digital display and interactivity, including
new developments like VR (virtual reality)
headsets, figure in the presentation and
interpretation of arts and culture. The trend
is to balance digital interactivity with fleshand-blood
presence. Greeters, guides,
docents, curators, and greater back-of-house
visibility help connect visitors to institutions.
If “edutainment” is in question, experience
and dialogue are not.
Museums are creating cultural moments
outside their walls—at real places in the
community that make the visitor experience
richer and more relevant. To be seen as
cultural hubs, they are also diversifying their
programs, often with outside partners, and
giving rise to new hybrid, pop-up, and virtual
venues that provide public antidotes to the
daily grind. In the process, art, architecture,
and the user experience interact and merge
in unexpected ways. These convergences
increasingly include the urban environment
as well.
The web has also given rise to specialist
cultural organizations that can attract—and
connect—geographically broad audiences.
This will spark the growth of bespoke
museums and centers built around a singular
vision, collection, or person. Larger institutions
are often cosponsors. Like universities
in their research partnerships, institutions
have to manage collaborations carefully
to avoid blurring their mission with
others’ agendas.
Social resilience is a specific concern
of cultural organizations. By engaging their
broader community and partnering with
other groups, they can build the social
cohesion that is the foundation of resilience.
Sustainability is important—in Mexico, for
example, environmental responsibility is part
of many museums’ brands, consciously
expressed in their design.
below: The Science of Spirituality, Lisle, IL
right: Tienda de los Museos del Banco Central,
San José, Costa Rica
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