Stories from the Botanical Garden

Stories from the Botanical Garden – the interactive digital experience as a procurement tool.

Background
Visiting the Botanical Garden in Copenhagen is a beautiful experience for all the senses. The garden is a living exhibition, where a walk in itself can be a complete experience. You can move around between lemontrees taking in their smell, or get to know what a cacaoplant look like.

At the same time it’s a place where employees and students from University of Copenhagen work and do research, and the garden contains lots of stories from the world of nature. These stories might not be known to the visitors, and the current exhibition is very sparse in its communication.

Our idea is to get some of the ‘invisible stories’ come to life and be known to the audience in the Botanical Garden. This could be the story of the photosynthesis, or about reproduction of plants, or how the stone from an avocado can become a new tree.

We believe that by using digital design encouraging play and exploration we can make these stories to reach the audience and by doing so making the visit to the Botanical Garden more interesting and educational.

Problem space
As mentioned above, our task is to examine how we can use digital media as a means of communication in the Botanical Garden. We have challenged ourselves by wanting to think interaction design into the space of the garden, and to use physical installations as a way of creating communication.

Our overall problem is to explore the potential that lies in designing for interaction and reactive art, in terms of creating installations or designs that reveals and communicates some of the knowledge that lies ‘behind the scenes’ in a place like the Botanical Garden.
How can we make people aware of all the little interesting details that makes plants and an ecosystems so complex and interesting as they are, without necessarily having to describe everything with text? How can we create understanding of phenomena through design?

Project team:
Fie Krøyer Dahl
Emilie Oksholt-Petersen