Client Spotlight: Building Wonder at Holden Arboretum
Interactive nature exhibits have to survive weather, curiosity, and a lot of small hands. Here's how we built ones that do.
Holden Arboretum is one of the largest arboreta in the country — twelve square miles of forest, gardens, and interactive nature exhibits an hour east of Cleveland. When they came to us, the brief was as simple as it gets: make kids want to touch these.
Kids will touch anything
That's not a slogan, it's a design constraint. Any interactive at Holden has to survive being climbed on by a five-year-old in November, rained on all March, and photographed by a birthday party in June. The joyful parts — the tactile textures, the moving pieces, the click-into-place mechanisms — have to work the ten-thousandth time as well as they worked the first.
What we built
A family of interactive displays scattered across the property — frogs kids can find, mechanisms they can crank, textures that map to the actual bark of trees standing thirty feet away. Every piece designed to work outside, all year, without a staff member babysitting it.
Materials
Weather-durable powder-coated steel. UV-stable resin castings. Bearings and springs specified for outdoor humidity. Fasteners that resist a curious teenager with a Leatherman.
What made the project
Holden's team. They knew what worked at their site and what didn't, brought us into the conversation early, and let the design breathe. That's the kind of client work we live for — a partner with a real place, real visitors, and a real trust in what we do.
