Museums • Science and Technology • For Kids
Space Place: Te Ara Whānui ki Te Rangi
In October 2022 Story Inc began work with client Wheako Pōneke Experience Wellington to redesign the exhibitions at Space Place: Te Ara Whānui ki te Rangi, Wellington’s small-but-perfectly-formed astronomy museum at the top of the cable car in Kelburn.
We had created the previous exhibitions over twelve years earlier. They still looked good, but the world had moved on. There were new scientific discoveries whose stories needed to be told. Aotearoa New Zealand itself had changed, with a much greater emphasis on te ao Māori, the Māori cultural dimension. And at the same time, here as all around the world, visitors have become less tolerant of exhibitions with large amounts of text to read.
Client
Location
Completed
Wheako Pōneke Experience Wellington
Wellington, New Zealand
April 2025
Welcome to Space Place! Photo: Sarah Tansy
Star Path projection in Central Gallery - Photo: Sarah Tansy
The Gravity Well - Photo: Sarah Tansy
Touching a piece of the Moon! Photo: Sarah Tansy
What can you take into Space? In the Tūhura Module - Photo: Sarah Tansy
The Process
Space Place was a three-year journey, from an overall exhibition masterplan and concept design through three separate refits of different exhibition spaces. The masterplan called for reversing the overall circulation of the exhibition. The previous incarnation had started at the cosmic scale and gradually “zoomed in” on Aotearoa and Wellington. The new version, conceived of with our cultural advisor Ihaia Puketapu, started with the human stories of how voyagers used the stars to find Aotearoa, and “zoomed out” from there to the vastness of the cosmos, but ending with a reminder to visitors to look after our Earth, Papatūānuku. Content was updated (and made bilingual); a new graphic style was created, and new technology was installed throughout the galleries.
Photo: Sarah Tansey
The narrative experience was designed to educate visitors about the wonders of Space from mātauranga Māori and Pasifika perspectives as well through a western science lens. Reflecting cultural developments in Aotearoa over the last 12 years, much more emphasis was placed on the festival of Matariki me Puanga - the “Māori New Year”, celebrated around the winter solstice with the return of Marariki/ the Pleiades to our skies, and on Maramataka, the lunar calendar. The popular kids “spaceship” area Tūhura was refurbished and made bilingual. Other physical interactive elements were retained and upgraded, and we created a new “Star Path” floor projection with animators Creature Post.
Inside the Tūhura Module - Photo: Sarah Tansy
Interacting with the Star Path projection
Photo: Sarah Tansy
The Result
We were delighted by what we managed to achieve at Space Place on a relatively limited budget that had to be spread across three separate installations over three years. The revised visitor circulation, greatly increased presence of te ao Māori stories, the use of new storytelling techniques such as “scrollytelling” touch screens, and the new look physical and graphic design, all combined to completely transform the visitor experience.
Credits
UX
Click Suite
Star Path Animation
Creature Post
Translation
Kawata Teepa
Melissa Bryant
Ihaia Puketapu
Cultural Consultation
Anderson Design
Fabrication and Installation
DAC Group
Printing
Toulouse Ltd