Petros Ioannidis

Hybrid Experiences in Museums

Hybrid Experiences in Museums (DAC): A design-after-design Approach

Danish Architecture Center and IT University of Copenhagen
2019-2022

In a nutshell, what was the topic of your PhD project?

In museums, each visitor interacts based on their personal motives. That occasionally results in visitors engaging with installations in unpredictable ways. My research focuses on how visitors discover new purposes for hybrid (physical and virtual) installations through play.

What surprised you most about the process?

I was surprised by the ingenuity of the visitors. I found the way they engage with the exhibition space and the installations very fascinating. Even after months of deploying an installation, visitors displayed new and interesting behavior.

What is the most important thing you have learned from writing an Industrial PhD?

I have learned that it is important to have a good project plan and to follow your curiosity. And even though theory is important, I found it was even more important for me to remember that the users and visitors were the primary focus of my work.

What impact has your PhD project had on you, personally?

My PhD project helped me to advance my professional career as a designer, to learn how things are done in a high-performance environment, and to gain in-depth knowledge of a unique problem: designing in the cultural sector with a focus on education and dissemination.

What key learnings resulted from your project?

Museums need to be open to visitors assigning new meanings to their design. They need to engage visitors as early as possible in the design process and allow them to drive the process. Visitors will almost certainly re-assign new meaning to installations, and the institution needs to be open to such a process occurring.

What makes your research relevant?

My research can help institutions and visitors to have an open conversation through the use of installations. My work helps institutions to create an environment inside which visitors provide feedback on their needs and wants through how they use the installations in place. At the same time, my research supports the visitor’s voice, which is an important aspect in cultural institutions that support democratic education.

What are the perspectives for your research?

My research provides a process that institutions can take on when they want to create installations with the help of visitors. Once they apply such a process, the visitors can provide continuous feedback on a specific installation, helping the designers to re-design it so it supports visitors’ needs and wants.