Portfolio Archives - Paul Orselli

Glass Factory Mountain

National Bottle Museum

POW! collaborated with DCM Fabrication and Kim Wagner Nolan to create a dynamic new exhibition for the National Bottle Museum. The “Glass Factory Mountain” exhibition shares stories about the people, processes, and products of the historic Glassworks supplying bottles to ship the famous Saratoga Springs waters.

Title & Credit Panel

Layered acrylic panels provide a striking introduction to the “Glass Factory Mountain” exhibition

Glassworks Maps

Modern and historic maps help visitors understand how the locations of the Glassworks depended on access to the vast quantities of wood – to fire furnaces and sand – to make glass.

Exhibition Video

Glass Factory Mountain Exhibition Video.

People Section Panels

Utilizing 19th-century photographs of glassblowers, Kim Wagner Nolan created large format graphics to punctuate the compelling stories found inside the National Bottle Museum.

Oscar Granger

Oscar Granger, one of the key figures of the Glassworks era, is represented by a life-sized graphic based on a historical painting of Granger.

Bottles Display Case

Drawing upon the Museum’s extensive collections, DCM Fabrication built this custom display case with backlighting for each bottle.

Congressville Section Panel

This display panel picks up architectural details shown in the photographs of the pavilion at Congress Spring, where the public would come to sample the waters.

Glass Furnace Model Front

The front of this “Glass Furnace” display features samples of the components needed to make glass and a touchable piece of glass from one of the 19th-century Glassworks.

Glass Furnace Model Back

The back of the “Glass Furnace” display is a scale model of the type of large furnaces that were used to contain the molten glass that glassblowers formed into bottles.

D&H Canal Museum

The D&H Canal Museum

The D&H Canal Museum is located in High Falls, NY, inside a beautiful historic building originally constructed in 1797 and later used in the 1800s for Canal Company offices.

POW! was proud to partner with Ferwerda Creative Services to develop compelling, immersive environments and thoughtful interactive experiences that illuminate the stories associated with this vital part of American history. In the first months after opening the new facility, the number of visitors exceeded the annual attendance figures in the museum’s previous location!

Important creative partners joining us in this project included 42 Design|Fab Studio, Trivium Interactive, Avery Zucker, and Teddy Vuong. Please credit all photos in this section to Teddy Vuong.

Museum Entrance

D&H Canal Museum Entrance.

D&H Canal Timeline

The introductory section of the D&H Canal Museum puts a twist on the traditional history museum timeline by punctuating the chronology with interactive elements and historical objects and documents.

Economics Area Overview

Inviting graphics and authentic objects, such as a stock certificate and a $3 banknote, displayed inside a period-appropriate desk, help visitors understand the economic importance of the D&H Canal.

Windows to the Past

Large, colorful video displays show the changes that the Canal brought to the region surrounding High Falls over time. POW! and Ferwerda Creative Services worked with Teddy Vuong and museum staff to develop the content and scripting for these units.

New York Cityscape

42 Design|Fab created a stylized, dimensional New York City streetscape from the 1800s using touchable objects to help a broad range of visitors learn about the importance of the materials the D&H Canal transported.

Technology Area Overview

In the Technology Area of the Museum, people can operate an interactive lock model, examine canal boat artifacts, set off a simulated explosion, and operate a scale model of a “coal roller coaster” (also known as the Gravity Railroad).

Roebling Detail

An entire section of the Technology area sits near the watchful eyes of a life-sized cutout of German immigrant engineer John Augustus Roebling. In addition to significant work involving wire rope and the creation of suspension aqueducts that Roebling completed for the D&H Canal, he later went on to design the Brooklyn Bridge.

Blaster Interactive

Museum visitors can take on the role of “blasters,” the men responsible for the dangerous job of blasting large rocks out of the way during the construction of the Canal. Lighting a simulated fuse triggers a video sequence that usually (but not always!) results in a booming explosion.

TAVERN Overview

Since part of the museum building’s original use was as a tavern, we created an immersive environment reflecting a 19th century gathering place to tell social history stories of the women, people of color, immigrants, and even children who all helped to build and operate the D&H Canal.

TAVERN Table Detail

Detail of one of the Tavern tables showing inset document replicas, graphics, and period-appropriate objects that museum visitors can sit down and engage with.

Genius & Generosity

Genius & Generosity - The Elliott Story

The introductory gallery at the Elliott Museum in Stuart Florida gives a glimpse into the life of Sterling Elliott, who the museum is named after.

Through the exhibition visitors discover Sterling’s early life as an inventor, his combined interests in bicycles and social justice, and the business machine empire that he built with his son Harmon.

Entry

Shown here is one of Sterling’s early inventions, the knot-tying machine, which was so impressive that Thomas Edison publicly called Sterling a genius! Also shown here is Sterling’s Quadricycle, whose steering mechanism influences automobile engineering and design to this very day.

Entry Long View

A view into the “Genius & Generosity” exhibition.

Harness Racing Sulky

Sterling Elliott was good friends with his neighbors, the Stanley Brothers. Their shared interests and conversations inspired some of Sterling’s inventions, such as the harness racing sulky located in this part of the exhibit. Elliott’s sulky designs changed harness racing completely, and modern harness racing sulkies still reflect the improvements Sterling Elliott developed over a hundred years ago.

Antique Bicycles

Sterling Elliott not only built bicycles, but he also called for social reforms that would secure more rights for women and African-Americans. The Sterling Bicycle Company manufactured bicycles specifically designed for women when other bicycle companies refused to do so. The top two bicycles featured here show design elements built into Elliott bicycles marketed toward women.

Business Machines Empire

The start of the Elliott Addressing Machine Company came about because of Sterling Elliott’s involvement with bicycles. To mail tens of thousands of subscriptions for “The Bicycling World” magazine more efficiently and quickly than writing out every address by hand, Sterling invented one of his first devices for labeling mail that used address stencils that customers could create themselves. During much of the 20th century, the Elliott Addressing Machine Company was one of the most successful businesses of its kind in the entire world

Looking Back View

Looking back toward the entrance of the “Genius & Generosity” exhibition.

Acton Discovery Museum

Acton Discovery Museum Exhibits

The Discovery Museum in Acton, Massachusetts reopened in the early months of 2018 after combining two separate museums into a newly expanded and completely accessible building. Paul Orselli and POW! led the design and development of all seven new science exhibition galleries in this award-winning facility. In addition, Paul managed all external fabricators and supervised the final installation of exhibit components and environmental graphics in the new science galleries. Enjoy some selected images from inside the reimagined Discovery Museum.

Da Vinci Workshop Exhibition

Visitors to the da Vinci Workshop gallery use tools, tinker, and design, like the artist, scientist, engineer, and inventor Leonardo da Vinci.

Light And Color Exhibition

Scientists of all ages can immerse themselves in this vividly engaging exhibit gallery on the properties of light and color.

Math Exhibition

This gallery of fun, hands-on activities uses real world, visual interpretations of mathematical concepts to show that math is all around us!

Sound Exhibition

Young scientists and their families can explore and experience the amazing properties of sound by creating, seeing, hearing and feeling waves and physical vibrations!

Water Exhibition

Adults and children alike pour, whirl, float, and get hands wet as they control, move, divert, and explore the properties of water.

In Harm’s Way

In Harm’s Way exhibition

The In Harm’s Way exhibition (which was organized by Long Island Traditions in collaboration with the Long Island Museum) explores how local residents and government agencies prepare and recover from natural disasters.

Storms and hurricanes have an epic history on Long Island and in Upstate New York, from the September 1938 “Long Island Express” hurricane to the devastating winds and waves of Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Paul Orselli Workshop (POW!) provided exhibition development, as well as interactive exhibit components and graphic elements for this memorable history exhibition.

Artifacts

Numerous artifacts showing the effects of Long Island storms are featured in the exhibition.

Entry In Harm’s Way Exhibition

The dramatic entry of the In Harm’s Way exhibition shows newsreel footage of recent storms in a windswept beach setting.

Wall Map

A graphical wall map showing the locations of historic hurricanes around Long Island and featuring historic images associated with each storm. POW! developed and installed this feature in collaboration with Kim Wagner Nolan.

Long View

A view into the In Harm’s Way exhibition. Paul Orselli Workshop (POW!) provided exhibition development, as well as interactive exhibit components and graphic elements for this memorable history experience.

Block Table

An interactive block-building table designed and developed by Paul Orselli Workshop (POW!) for the In Harm’s Way exhibition. Here visitors can build their own scale structures designed to resist storm damage.

Bay House Outside

Another view of a classic Long Island Bay House as featured in the exhibition. POW! provided custom graphics in this area of the exhibition.

Bay House Interior

A classic Bay House is featured in the exhibition. POW! provided custom graphics in this area of the exhibition.

What Would

POW! designed and developed these simple interactive exhibit elements for visitors to share their own “storm stories.” Shown here is an abacus-style voting component that allows visitors to vote on which items they would take away from their home before a storm hits.

Feathers to the Stars

Feathers to the Stars Exhibition

“Feathers to the Stars” carries you through the amazing story of how ancient evolution gave birth to animal flight, how humans use imagination and engineering to get airborne, and how outer space will be our next frontier. This breathtaking permanent exhibition at the Frost Museum of Science was designed by Casson Mann.

Paul Orselli Workshop (POW!) was delighted to be the only outside contractor to be part of the core Development Team for this truly outstanding exhibition.

Frost Museum of Science

Feathers to the Stars exhibition at the Frost Museum of Science in Miami. Dinosaurs to birds, flight experimentation and trips to the moon. Interactive science exhibits about the evolution of flight at this amazing gallery.

Yutyrannus Huali Close Up

A close-up view of the feathered dinosaur Yutyrannus huali. This incredible 30-foot model was created by Staab Studios. Photo credit Frost Museum of Science.

Flight Lab

Installation shot of the Feathers to the Stars gallery with the Flight Lab table in foreground before the installation of interactive exhibit elements. Photo credit Frost Museum of Science.

Aircraft and Bird Models

View of Feathers to the Stars showing aircraft and bird models as well as the dynamic projection screen across one whole side of the gallery.
Photo credit ©cassonmann.

Interactive Aircraft Engine

A view into the exhibition with an interactive aircraft engine in the foreground.
Photo credit ©cassonmann.

Overhead View Of The Exhibition

An overhead view of the Feathers to the Stars exhibition. Here a mounted bird casts its shadow on a full-scale reproduction of a Lilienthal glider produced by DCM Fabrication. Photo credit ©cassonmann.

A Full View Of Exhibition Gallery

A full view into the exhibition gallery showing aircraft, natural history specimens, and interactive exhibits.
Photo credit ©cassonmann.

Yutyrannus huali

Come face-to-face with a 30-foot dinosaur, the Yutyrannus huali, in Feathers to the Stars.
Photo credit Frost Museum of Science.

Dinosaurs in your Backyard

A Portal to Past Worlds

Step back in time at The Children’s Museum and experience Dinosaurs in your Backyard: A Portal to Past Worlds.

Dinos Sign

One of the dimensional entry signs for the “Dinosaurs in your Backyard” exhibition.

Dino Wall

Interactive Dinosaur Game Show and Designasaurus components from a Children’s Museum dinosaur exhibition.

Paleo Lab

Visitors explore real fossils and dinosaur topics through interactive exhibits and artifacts in the PaleoLab.

Raptor

A full-scale raptor model in “Dinosaurs in your Backyard” exhibition.

Trackway Unit

Large tactile trackway unit with Scutellosaurus model.

Dino Cubes

Visitors can use the Dino Cubes to solve six different ancient dinosaur scenes.

Private: Lenticular Video

Full Exhibit View

View of the exhibit components in the exciting Dinosaurs in your Backyard exhibition.

Tracks Fossils Table

Visitors to the Dinosaurs in your Backyard exhibition can touch actual dinosaur track fossils that are millions of years old!

Stego Puzzle

Large stylized wooden Stegosaurus dinosaur puzzle in the PaleoLab.

Scutelllosaurus Model

A full-scale recreation of the dinosaur Scutellosaurus created by project partner 42|design fab.

Dino Game Show

An interactive Dinosaur Game Show that lets visitors learn the difference between dinosaurs and other ancient animals.

Pop Culture Case

A display case filled with interesting books, toys, and other pop culture items about dinosaurs.

Posters Case

Movie and television items help visitors separate dinosaur fact from fiction.

Apatosaurus Femur Bone

Visitors can measure themselves against a full-scale Apatasaurus femur bone cast in the “Dinosaurs in your Backyard” exhibition.

NYSCI Connections Exhibition

Discover the NYSCI Connections Exhibit.

The Paul Orselli Workshop (POW!) was pleased to bring their science museum exhibit design & development skills to the major permanent gallery called “Connections” at the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI).

Router Pinball

This interactive “Router Pinball” component allows museum visitors to explore the science behind computer networks like the World Wide Web, and was developed after extensive prototyping with children and families. This is just one example of how POW! can bring extensive science museum exhibit experience to projects like yours!

Network Tiles

A simple, but effective, science exhibit for children and families to better understand the science behind “Connections” by creating their own networks using colorful tiles.

Network Interactives

A collection of interactive science museum components based on Networks were developed by POW! and used in the “Collections” exhibition at the New York Hall of Science.

Geoboards

Young scientists create “rubber band networks” through this cart-based activity in the Connections exhibition.

Connections Corner Cart

POW! was tasked with designing family-friendly interactive experiences to explicate Networks and the science behind them through cart-based activities.

Interactive Art Museum Exhibit

The Animated Artwork of Laura Vaccaro Seeger

The Paul Orselli Workshop worked with award winning children’s book author and illustrator Laura Vaccaro Seeger to develop the first truly interactive art museum exhibit at the Nassau County Museum of Art. Exhibition galleries featured Seeger’s original artwork and hands-on exhibit components related to each of her bestselling books.

Opposites

Fun visual and tactile opportunities to learn about “Opposites” inside “The Animated Artwork of Laura Vaccaro Seeger” exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art.

Light Table

An interactive light table component allows visitors to experiment with colors inspired by Seeger’s artwork. A great STEAM-based interactive exhibit opportunity!

Interactive Face

Using letters to create faces on a large magnetic head inspired by Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s book, “Walter Was Worried”.

How to Draw Bear

Visitors learn how to draw Seeger’s Bear character using magnetic drawing boards. An inexpensive, yet effective, exhibit design solution!.

Gallery Interactives

A view of one gallery from “The Animated Artwork of Laura Vaccaro Seeger” show at the Nassau County Museum of Art. POW! has worked with all types of museums to bring interactive, family-friendly experiences into their galleries.

Dress Up Dog

A fun interactive magnet board allows visitors to dress up Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s beloved Dog character in different outfits.

Bronx Zoo Stampers

Bronx Zoo Stampers Exhibition

POW! collaborated with Canstruct LLC and the staff from the Bronx Zoo to create “Passport Stamper” stations for their Summer Zoofari events. This was a great opportunity to bring principal Paul Orselli’s science education background to an informal learning project.

South America

A large jungle snake image was stamped on visitors’ Zoofari Passports inspired by one of the animals from South America found inside the Bronx Zoo habitats.

Zoofari Stamper

Weatherproof, durable, and fun interactive Zoofari Passport stations were deployed outside throughout the Bronx Zoo grounds. Bring over 35 years of museum exhibit development experience to your project when you work with POW!

Asia

Visitors could stamp their Zoofari Passports with a Tiger image evocative of the animals and exhibits from Asia found inside the Bronx Zoo.